SB 



J 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 



JSa. . J 



I 



g UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, g 






PRINCIPAL 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE 



BETWEEN THE 



OLD AND NEW CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 



Mrs. LOUISA W. TURNER. 



THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



" And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad ; why .hear ye 
him?" — John x. 20. 

11 Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself ; much 
learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble 
Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." — Acts 
xxvi. 24, 25. 

" But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for 
they are foolishness unto him-, neither can he know them A because they 
are spiritually discerned." — 1 Cor. ii. 14. 



tf^fff 



( 



BOSTON: 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 

M DCCC LVI. 







n* N 



THB LIBKARY 
OF COfc^RESS 

WASHINGTON 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 

Dr. William Turner, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
TUCRSTON ASD TCRRY, PRIXTLRS. 



CONTENTS- 



PAG3 

Introduction ix 

Dedication ... . xi 



CHAPTER I. 

Claims of Swedenborg — Authentic Testimonies to his truth 
and Soundness of Mind — More certain proofs of which 
than of any existing with regard to the writers of the 
Bible — Of the Madness of Swedenborg — Account of 
Mathesius — Denial of Brockmer — Proof of Mathesius* 
insanity — Wesley imposed upon — His Alarm . . 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Some evidences of Swedenborg's Supernatural Knowledge — 
Supernatural Occurrence connected with John Wesley — 
Three Remarkable Narratives — Their authenticity — The 



IV CONTENTS. 

one relative to the Queen — Madame de Marteville — The 
Fire at Stockholm — Of the Possible and Impossible — Some 
Names of Witnesses in Swedenborg's Favor . . 14 



CHAPTER III. 

The Value of Truth — What constitutes a True Church — The 
Scripture Criterion — The Claims of each Christian Sect — 
Superiority of True Doctrines — Way to discover the True 
Church — Why there are so many Christian Sects — Ne- 
cessity of New Light — The Jews' Expectation of the First 
Advent — Cause of their Disbelief — Equal Blindness of 
Christians with regard to the Second Advent — Who 
are called the Old Church, and who are called the New 
Church 30 



CHAPTER IV. 

Old Church Idea of the Spiritual Sense of the Bible — What 
every Humble Christian will confess — New Church Belief 
of the Spiritual Sense — Proofs of its Truth— Of the 
Second Advent — Proofs that it cannot be as literally 
described — Destruction of the "World — Account of the 
versions of the Bible — Luther — True Meaning of the 
Second Advent — Remarkable similarity of language in 



CONTENTS. V 

the Predictions of the End of the Jewish and of the End of 
the First Christian Churches — Of the Internal or Spiritual 
Sense of Scripture — Declaration of its Existence by the 
Lord and the Apostle Paul — Quotation from Swedenborg 
concerning Peter 37 



CHAPTER V. 

Old Church Doctrine of the Last Judgment — What does not 
alter the Creed of a Church — A great Episcopal Minister's 
Opinion of the Corner Stone of Christianity — Proof that 
the Dead have not to wait for a General Day of Resurrection 
— Inconsistency of the Old Church with regard to the Last 
Judgment and Resurrection of the Material Body — What 
Paul says of the Resurrection of the Natural Body — The 
New Church agreeing with Paul — The Consequence — 
The Last Judgment Relative to each one — Particulars in 
regard to General Judgments — Reasons why the Revela- 
tions for the New Church were not made sooner . 59 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the Character of God — Contradictory Description of Him 
by the Episcopalians — Roman Catholics — Calvinists — 
Reference for Proofs of the Fallacy of the Episcopal Church 
— Impeachment of the Wisdom of God — His Repenting — 



VI CONTENTS. 

Punishment Explained — Fate of Infants — God a Glorious 
Divine Man — The Virgin Mary — Explanatory Quotation 
of the Div ine Humanity — Tri-personality — Texts of Scrip- 
ture opposed to the Unitarians . . 71 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Vicarious Atonement — The New Church Doctrine of the 
Atonement according to Scripture — Why the Vicarious 
Atonement is Unscriptural — Explanation of Mediator — 
Of Sacrifice for Sin — Genuine Sacrifice — Correspondence 
of the Crucifixion — Of the Lord's Supper — Different 
Views of the Old and New Church in the Ordinance — The 
Falsehood Implied by Communicants not "Receiving the 
Creed of the Church in which they Commune — Explana- 
tion of the Lord's Prayer in the Old Church — And in the 
New — Internal and External Man ... 90 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Old Church and New Church Concerning Faith, Charity 
and Salvation — Of the First Chapter of Genesis — Old 
Church Inconsistency with regard to Swedenborg — Internal 
Sense of the Word — Old Church and New Church Views of 
the Origin of Evil — Of Children, Remains, Good and Evil 
Spirits — Regeneration — World of Spirits, Heaven, Hell 
— Of Conversion and Regeneration, the Difference, Death 



CONTENTS. Vli 

Bed Repentance — Old Church Views of Heaven and Hell 
— New Church Views of the Life after Death, of the Hap- 
piness of Heaven, the Angels, their Employments, Mar- 
riages — Old Church Objection — New Church Answer — 
Two Quotations from Rev. S. Noble on the Subject of 
Spiritual Marriage 113 



CHAPTER IX. 

Of the Sabbath — Several Quotations from Swedenborg — 
Of Amusements — Of Dancing — Advice with regard to the 
perusal of the most suitable Religious Books — Concluding 
Remarks • 146 



INTRODUCTION 



My first edition of this work appeared in 
New York in the year 1846. It was favor- 
ably received in this country. I had the ines- 
timable satisfaction of learning that it had 
served to lead many readers to a knowledge 
of The True Christian Religion ; they ulti- 
mately became sincere embracers of the 
new dispensation. In England, also, it w x as 
deemed sufficiently useful to reprint at the 
publisher's expense, unsolicited by me, and 
even without my knowledge. The London 
edition appeared in 1850. In the London 
Intellectual Repository, of January, 1850, the 
Reviewer speaks of it in these words : " Con- 
trast is one most important means of seeing 
the truth : and this little work, which in a 
brief space contrasts many points of the 
New and of the Old Doctrines together, is 
well calculated to be of service to the general 
reader, and also to the novitiate and the ma- 
ture member of the church. It has been pre- 
pared by an American lady, who speaks from 



X INTRODUCTION. 

a vivid and enlightened perception of these 
'points of difference.' " 

In re-perusing the work in subsequent years, 
I found I could very greatly improve it, and 
thereby enlarge the sphere of its use. There- 
fore, I carefully revised and greatly enlarged 
the present edition, with but one object in 
view, namely, the hope that it may prove 
useful to all who may read it. 

LOUISA W. TURNER. 

323 Fourth Av., New York, 
June, 1855. 



DEDICATION. 



TO MY DEARLY BELOVED DAUGHTER: 

My dear Child, — 

If Divine Wisdom, in the course of His Almighty 
Providence, should see fit to permit you to live in 
this world till you reach the years of womanhood, at 
which time you may be enabled to understand the 
subsequent pages, I dedicate them to you, in proof of 
the deep love I feel for you, with the earnest request 
that you will then read them, and study to practise 
the teachings they inculcate. As all true love 
seeks the happiness of its object, and, as there is no 
enduring happiness which is not founded upon true 
religion, hence, the highest duty of Parents is to 
teach their children the way that leads to Heaven, 
which will at the same time conduct them safely 
through the joys and sorrows, the prosperities and 



Xll DEDICATION. 

adversities of this world, with that Heavenly-minded 
spirit which belongs to True Christianity. 

Many difficulties, doubts and temptations may 
tend to mislead you, crowd your path with the 
thorns of ridicule, fill your mind with anxious fears 
with regard to the right and the wrong. These 
trials, my child, are the spiritual combats which 
it is the duty of every true Christian to watch and 
resist. Think not that you can do so in your own 
strength, but ever remember, in yourself you are 
powerless ; all strength, goodness and truth come 
from Heaven ; therefore, in every state of doubt, 
ignorance and temptation, raise your heart and 
thoughts in fervent supplication to God in Prayer ! 
Ask Him to help you to see the Truth, feel the 
Truth, and to do the Truth ; to guard you against 
false and evil spirits, and ever to surround you by 
His wise and good angels, and help you to allow 
yourself to be guided by them as messengers from 
the Lord. And in perfect dependence upon Him, 
study ever to practise that self-control, without 
which you can never overcome the natural evil 
within, and walk in that life of usefulness which 
leadeth to Heaven. Seek to live ever as having 
the Celestial Heaven in view, as the object for 
which life was given to you, — there to join two 



DEDICATION. Xlll 

angel-brothers who have gone before, and to meet 
all who can best contribute to your eternal happi- 
ness. Strive, my. darling child, and God will most 
certainly bless your efforts in following the advice 
of the earthly being who most loves you. 
Your devoted mother, 

L. W. T. 
New York, June 8, 1855. 



PRINCIPAL 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE, 

ETC., ETC. 



CHAPTER I. 

Claims of Swedenborg — Authentic Testimonies to his Truth 
and Soundess of Mind — More certain Proofs of which 
than of any existing with regard to the Writers of the Bible 

— Of the Madness of Swedenborg — Account of Mathesius 

— Denial of Brockmer — Proof of Mathesius' Insanity — 
Wesley imposed upon — His Alarm. 

Swedenborg repeatedly and most solemnly 
avers, that in the year 1745 the Lord God se- 
lected him to publish to this world the myste- 
ries and truths of the spirit world, with which, 
from that period, he was permitted to have 
open intercourse for twenty-seven years, last- 
ing till his death, which occurred at the age of 
eighty-four. During this whole long period, 



£ POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

as he read the Bible, the LORD taught him 
the internal sense thereof by the science of 
correspondences, for the purpose of enlighten- 
ing the world with regard to the true doctrines 
of Scripture, about which mankind was at 
that time in gross error, owing to their evil 
lives, and their understanding the Scriptures 
merely in the literal sense. The truth of these 
claims is to be found in the internal evidence 
of his writings, and the testimony of a large 
number of conspicuous and undoubted wit- 
nesses to the unerring integrity, practical piety 
and benevolence of Swedenborg's character. 
He possessed all the virtues that adorn a truly 
good man, united with genius, wisdom, the 
most extensive learning, and a clear and most 
sound intellect through life, as well as excel- 
lent bodily health. To all this, a number of 
highly respectable, and some eminent persons, 
who were on terms of personal intimacy and 
friendship with Swedenborg for years, have 
given their unequivocal testimony. Among 
the number are as follows : the Rev. Nicholas 
Collin, a native of Sweden, and pastor of the 
Swedish church in Philadelphia in 1817, at 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 6 

which time he published his testimony in the 
" Philadelphia Gazette " of Aug. 5th, 8th and 
10th. This gentleman was personally ac- 
quainted with Swedenborg, and speaks in the 
highest terms of him. 

The next testimony is from a public docu- 
ment, an oration delivered in the Swedish 
Royal Academy of Sciences, on the occasion 
of Swedenborg's death, by the Chevalier de 
Sandel, Superintendent of the Mines, and 
Knight of the Order of the Polar Star, at a 
meeting of the Academy, held in the great 
hall of the House of Nobles, Oct. 7th, 1772. 

The next most important testimony is from 
a man of great eminence and learning, who 
says in some letters to General Tuxen, that 
he had not only known Swedenborg for forty- 
two years, during the latter portion of his life, 
but had also daily frequented his company. 
These letters were published in the New Jeru- 
salem Magazine in 1790 - 91, and were writ- 
ten by no less a person than Count Andrew 
John Van Hopken, one of the institutors of the 
Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, who 
served for a considerable time in the quality 



4 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

of Secretary, and who was afterwards for 
many years Prime Minister of the kingdom, 
and also one of the sixteen Senators, which 
made him the second person in the kingdom, 
and this man distinctly affirms that Sweden- 
borg " possessed a sound judgment upon all 
occasions ; that he saw everything clearly, 
and expressed himself well on every subject." 
Such testimony ought, surely, to have more 
weight, with reasonable beings, than the 
wholly unsubstantiated reports of his insanity. 

The next testimony is from the pen of Gen- 
eral Tuxen, in a letter to Mr. Nordenskjold, 
dated May 4th, 1790, and published in the N. 
J. M. The General expresses himself thus : 
" I thank our Lord, the God of Heaven, that I 
have been acquainted with this great man 
[Swedenborg] and his writings. I esteem 
this as the greatest blessing I ever experienced 
in this life and hope I shall profit by them in 
working out my salvation." 

Dr. Gabriel Andrew Beyer, Professor of 
Greek Literature and Assessor in the Consis- 
tory of Gottenberg, became one of Sweden- 
borg's most intimate friends and active pro- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. O 

moters of his sentiments. In consequence, by 
order of the king, Dr. Beyer presented to his 
Majesty a declaration of his favorable opinion 
with regard to Swedenborg, dated Jan. 2d, 
1770, which may be seen in " The Intellectual 
Repository," vol. i. (first series), p. 113, &c. 
It has also been republished in the form of 
a tract. 

Besides the above testimony of his own 
countrymen, and of other foreigners, some 
who knew him in England have added their 
unequivocal testimony to his truthfulness and 
soundness of mind. Of these, the principal 
is the Rev. Thomas Hartley, M. A., Rector of 
Winwick, in Northamptonshire, who, in 1781, 
wrote the most satisfactory testimony in Swe- 
denborg's favor, declaring his unwavering and 
firm belief in the claims of Swedenborg, and 
the truth of his writings. This is still to be 
found on record in the preface to the English 
editions of the works " Concerning the Inter- 
course between the Soul and Body," and 
" Concerning Heaven and Hell," also in " The 
True Christian Religion," in the form of a 
letter to the translator, (the Rev. John Clowes,) 



D POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

one of the best men who ever lived. This 
latter gentleman was ordained an Episcopal 
minister, and as Rector of St. John's Church 
in Manchester for fifty years, he preached to 
his Episcopal congregation the doctrines pub- 
lished by Sivedenborg ; notwithstanding which 
he was permitted to retain his rectorship till 
his death, which occurred a few years ago, 
respected and beloved by his congregation, 
who erected in his church splendid pieces of 
sculpture to his honor, both during his lifetime 
and after. He has translated into English 
many of Swedenborg's Theological works ; 
besides he has himself written many books on 
the same subject The Rev. John Clowes 
was also the contemporary of the great 
Swede, and in 1826 wrote a letter to the Rev. 
S. Noble, (author of " An Appeal in Behalf 
of the New Church," another English de- 
fender of Swedenborg's Theology, and but 
lately deceased). The letter alluded to w r as 
with regard to the Rev. John Wesley's favor- 
able sentiments of Swedenborg, about the time 
of spring in 1773, owing to a remarkable cir- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 7 

cumstance which had lately taken place ; this 
will be related in the next chapter.* 

The Rev. Thomas Hartley was on terms of 
intimate friendship with Swedenborg, which 
he not only deemed an honor, but among the 
greatest blessings of his life. Mr. Hartley 
himself was well known and highly esteemed 
by the religious characters of that day. 

An eminent physician of that time, Dr. 
Messiter, also personally acquainted with Swe- 
denborg, has given his testimony in his favor 
in his correspondence with Dr. Hamilton, Pro- 
fessor of Divinity in the University of Edin- 
burgh, in 1769. f 

Another Englishman, whose approbation of 
Swedenborg's sentiments was strengthened 
by personal acquaintance, was Mr. William 
Cookworthy, a man of most superior charac- 
ter ; the friend of the first Lord Camelford, 
and of Captain Jarvis, afterwards Earl of St. 
Vincent, and the associate of many of the 

* It may be seen in the Rev. S. Noble's own words in his 
M Appeal." 

t See Intellectual Repository, yol. iii. (first series,) p. 
449, &c. 



8 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

literati of his day. This gentleman testified 
his satisfaction with Swedenborg and his writ- 
ings, by joining with Mr. Hartley in translat- 
ing the treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell, 
and defraying the whole expense of the print- 
ing and publication.* 

Though to the unprejudiced and reasona- 
ble, further proof of the truth of Swedenborg's 
claims cannot be required, yet there is still one 
which ought to have some weight, being on 
oath before the Lord Mayor, by two respecta- 
ble persons who had no interest in the matter, 
viz., Mr. and Mrs. Shearsmith, in whose house 
Swedenborg died in London. Thev made an 
affidavit, dated Nov. 2d, 1785, in which they 
aver, " that he enjoyed a sound mind, memory 
and understanding, to the last hour of his 
life." f The Rev. S. Noble, in his " Appeal," 
says of them, " Many are now living, of whom 
I am one, who can bear witness to the strong 

* See a memoir of him in the Intellectual Repository, new 
series, vol. i. p. 439, &c. 

t See the affidavit at length in the " New Magazine of 
Knowledge," for 1791. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. V 

terms of respect in which they always spoke 
of their noble lodger." 

Among the intimate acquaintances of Swe- 
denborg who testified to his truth and sound- 
ness of mind, besides those mentioned, are 
also Mr. Springer, formerly Swedish Consul at 
the port of London, and Mr. Robsam, Director 
of the Bank of Stockholm. These, and a great 
number of other witnesses, (which it would 
be tedious to name,) form an array of unques- 
tionable testimonies to the truth and sanity 
of Swedenborg, far greater than can be 
brought forward to the truth and sanity of any 
historian, or of the Prophets, Apostles, and 
Evangelists. Is it, then, reasonable to doubt 
the greater evidences of truth, and to believe 
the lesser ? As stronger proofs of the sanity 
and truth of Swedenborg are extant than can 
possibly be produced with regard to the sanity 
and truth of the writers of the Bible, if justice 
were done, Swedenborg's writings would be 
believed as veritable as the Bible ; particularly 
as their internal evidence show them to be in 
perfect agreement with the Scriptures. 

It is objected that Swedenborg was said to 



10 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

be mad ! — But where is the proof? Was not 
the Saviour also said to be mad ? " And many 
of them said, he hath a devil, and is mad, 
why hear ye him ? " (John x. 20.) Also the 
Apostle Paul, was he disbelieved because he 
was accused of madness by one high in au- 
thority ? " Festus said with a loud voice, Paul 
thou art beside thyself; much learning doth 
make thee mad." (Acts xxvi. 24.) As in 
neither of these two great instances was the 
accusation true, nor is it true in the case of 
Swedenborg ; the falsehood of which allega- 
tion in his case can be proved by well authen- 
ticated published documents, and by some 
still living witnesses. The whole story was a 
fabrication by Mr. Mathesius, minister of the 
Swedish chapel in London, who was a bitter 
enemy of Swedenborg, and violently opposed 
to his doctrines. This Mathesius reported 
that while Swedenborg was lodging at Mr. 
Brockmer's house in 1743, he was seized with 
a violent fever attended with delirium, from 
which he never recovered. The first evidence 
of the falsehood of the report is, that it was 
not put in circulation till near forty years after 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 11 

the alleged event of the fever. It is well at- 
tested that Swedenborg never had the fever, 
but through life enjoyed excellent health. Mr. 
Mathesius asserted that Mr. Brockmer had 
related the circumstance of the fever and de- 
lirium to him. There is on record a total 
denial of this assertion from the lips of Mr. 
Brockmer himself, testified by the Rev. Robert 
Hindmarsh,* who was still living to confirm 
the denial when published in the first edition 
of " Noble's Appeal." Furthermore it is well 
attested that Mr. Mathesius himself became 
insane shortly after his fabrication of Sweden- 
borg's insanity, and he might have been labor- 
ing under its commencement at the time. 
Proof of Mr. Mathesius' insanity is to be 
found in the Intellectual Repository for Jan- 
uary, 1830, wherein is related a conversation 
held May 2d, 1787, by Mr. Provo with Mr. 

* See his excellent work, entitled, " A Vindication of the 
Character and Writings of the Hon. Emanuel Swedenborg," 
&c, p. 19, 20. See also The New Magazine of Knowledge 
for 1791, which not only contains a refutation by Mr. Robert 
Beatson, of the above story, but of the principal of the 
strange misrepresentations of Swedenborg's sentiments, pub- 
lished by Mr. Wesley in the Armenian Magazine. 



12 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Bergstrom, Master of the Kings' Arms (Swe- 
dish) Hotel in Wellclose Square. Mr. Berg- 
strom relates that Mr. Mathesius went lunatic 
one day when he was about to preach in the 
Swedish church. Mr. B. says, " I was there 
and saw it ; he has been so ever since, and 
sent back to Sweden, where he now is : this 
was about four years ago." 

Mathesius related his fabrication of Swe- 
denborg's insanity to the Rev. John Wesley ? 
who was imposed upon by it, and helped to 
circulate the report ; probably for the purpose 
of putting a check on the increasing number 
of his own pupils, who were discovering 
that the New Church doctrines were better 
than those of Methodism. That Mr. Wesley 
should have taken alarm is not surprising, 
when he found so many of his own preachers 
becoming active promoters of Swedenborg's 
teachings. Among those are to be numbered 
the following : the Rev. Samuel Smith, Mr. 
James Hindmarsh, Mr. Isaac Hawkins, Mr. 
R. Jackson, Mr. J. W. Salmon, and Mr. T. 
Parker. 

That under the effect of Wesley's declining 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 13 

influence, he should have forgotten the impres- 
sion made upon his own mind with regard to 
Swedenborg, by a very remarkable circum- 
stance which had occurred nearly ten years 
previous, is not surprising when it is remem- 
bered how often our interest^ or pride of opin- 
ion, influences our belief. 



14 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



CHAPTER II. 

Some Evidences of Swedenborg's Supernatural Knowledge — 
Supernatural Occurrence connected with John Wesley — 
Three Remarkable Narratives — Their Authenticity — The 
one relative to the Queen — Madame de Marteville — The 
Fire at Stockholm — Of the Possible and Impossible — 
Some Names of Witnesses in Swedenborg's Favor. 

Some very remarkable circumstances in the 
life of Swedenborg are so well attested by so 
many highly respectable and undoubted au- 
thorities, they are to be found in so many 
books and respectable magazines, that it is 
idle to deny their truth. The first we shall 
relate is with regard to John Wesley ; attested 
to, among others, by the Rev. John Clowes, 
Mr. Houghton (his intimate friend, who heard 
it from an eye witness, Rev. Samuel Smith), 
and John Isaac Hawkins. 

The Rev. Samuel Smith, in company with 
several other Methodist preachers, in the latter 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 15 

end of February, 1772, was receiving instruc- 
tion from Rev. John Wesley, when the latter 
gentleman was amazed by the receipt of a 
letter in nearly the following words : 

" Great Bath Street, Cold Bath Fields, Feb. 1772. 
" Sir, — I have been informed in the world 
of spirits that you have a strong desire to con- 
verse with me ; I shall be happy to see you if 
you will favor me with a visit. 

" I am, Sir, your humble servant, 

" Eman. Swedenborg." 

"Wesley frankly acknowledged to the com- 
pany that he had that desire, but that he had 
never mentioned it to any one. 

Wesley replied to Swedenborg that he was 
closely occupied preparing for a six months' 
journey, but that he would do him the plea- 
sure to call on him after his return to London. 
To which Swedenborg replied that it would 
then be too late ; as his (Swedenborg's) death 
would occur on the 29th of the next month. 

Wesley went on his tour, and when he re- 
turned to London the 10th October of the 



16 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

same year, he learned (if not before) that 
Swedenborg had departed this life on the 
29th March previous. Rev. John Clowes in 
a letter to Rev. S. Noble relates that Richard 
Houghton, Esq. of Liverpool, his own inti- 
mate friend, and also that of Mr. "Wesley, 
had told him, as near as he could remem- 
ber, in the spring of 1773, that Wesley, on 
a late visit to Liverpool, had expressed his 
sentiments to him (Mr. H.) of Swedenborg' s 
writings in the following terms : " We may 
now burn our books of Theology. God has 
sent us a teacher from Heaven, and in the 
doctrines of Swedenborg we may learn all 
that it is necessary for us to know." His 
having ten years after believed the false report 
of Swedenborg's insanity does not at all in- 
validate the above circumstance ; it was very 
natural for him to entertain exalted sentiments 
of Swedenborg when he himself had just ex- 
perienced an evidence of Swedenborg's inter- 
course with the spirit world. 

Another instance of the same nature is con- 
nected with the Queen of Sweden, Louisa 
Ulrica, wife of King Adolphus Frederic, and 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 17 

sister of the celebrated Frederic of Prussia. 
This is attested to, after diligent investigation, 
by the celebrated philosopher, Emanuel Kant, 
together with the narrative connected with 
the Countess de Marteville (printed in Ger- 
man Harteville), whose husband was ambas- 
sador at the Swedish court from Holland — 
and also the story of the great fire at Stock- 
holm. These three narratives are related as 
most positive and undoubted facts by eye 
witnesses of the circumstances, by men of 
standing who had every opportunity of dis- 
covering the truth of the matter, some, too, 
who were not receivers of Swedenborg's doc- 
trines, though they could not resist the attested 
evidences of these facts. Kant says in a let- 
ter (which is published at length in a number 
of works) to Madame de Knoblock, afterwards 
widow of Lieut. Gen. Klingsporn, a literary 
lady of quality, thus : " These accounts I re- 
ceived from a Danish officer, who was formerly 
my friend, and attended my lectures ; and who 
at the table of the Austrian Ambassador, 
Dietrichstein, at Copenhagen, together with 
several other guests, read a letter which the 
2 



18 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Ambassador had lately received from Baron 
de Ludzow, the Mechlenburgh Ambassador at 
Stockholm ; in which he says that he, in com- 
pany with the Dutch Ambassador, was present, 
at the Queen of Sweden's residence, at the 
extraordinary transaction respecting M. de 
Swedenborg, &c. It can scarcely be believed, 
that one ambassador should communicate 
a piece of information to another for public- 
use, which related to the Queen of the court 
where he resided, and which he himself, to- 
gether with a splendid company, had the op- 
portunity of witnessing if it were not truer 
Among others who attest to the truth of these 
narratives are : Professor Schlegel, Count 
Hopken, Capt. Charles Leonard de Stahl- 
hammer, Knight of the Royal Order of the 
Sword ; M. Dieudonne Thiebault, a French 
Savant, Prof, of Belles Lettres in the Royal 
Academy of Berlin, (the last relates having 
heard from the Queen's own lips the affair 
with regard to herself) ; Chamberlain D'Ha- 
mon, brother-in-law to the Count de Marte- 
ville, M. de Schwerin, eye witness of the affair 
with the Queen; Mr. Springer; M. Pernetti, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 19 

French translator of the treatise Concerning 
Heaven and Hell, and General Tuxen. 

The story relative to the Queen is as fol- 
lows : The Queen of Sweden, having a desire 
to put Swedenborg's supernatural knowledge 
to the test, one evening (in 1759) that he 
came to her court took him aside and begged 
him to inform himself what her deceased 
brother, the Prince Royal of Prussia, had said 
to her at the moment of her taking leave of 
him for the court of Stockholm. She added, 
that what the Prince had said was of a nature 
to render it impossible for her brother to have 
repeated it to any one ; and that it had never 
escaped her lips. The Queen did not believe 
Swedenborg could get the information ; conse- 
quently, when he returned a few days after, while 
she was at cards and requested a private audi- 
ence, she told him he might communicate what 
he had to say before the company ; but when 
he assured her it was of such a nature that he 
could not relate it before witnesses, she then 
became agitated, and giving her cards to 
another lady led the way to another room, 
where she posted M. de Schwerin at the door, 



20 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

and then advanced with Swedenborg to the 
farthest end of the room, where they could not 
be overheard. Swedenborg then told her the 
day, hour and very spot where she had taken 
leave of her brother, of the manner of parting, 
and the very ivords he said to her at the time ; 
upon which information the Queen almost 
fainted. 

The incident relative to the Countess de 
Marteville is as follows : The Count de Mar- 
teville, Ambassador from Holland to Stock- 
holm, having died suddenly, a shopkeeper 
demanded of his widow the amount of a bill 
which she remembered had been paid in her 
husband's lifetime ; but, being unable to find 
the receipt, she was advised to consult Swe- 
denborg who could communicate w T ith the 
dead. This she did, and a few days after 
Swedenborg informed her when her husband 
had paid the bill, and where he had put the 

receipt, which she subsequently found in the 
place described. 

The narrative of the great fire at Stockholm 
is related thus : In the year 1756, towards the 
end of September, on Saturday at four o'clock, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 21 

P. M., Swedenborg arrived at Gothenburg 
from England. Mr. William Castel invited 
him to his house, together with a party of 
fifteen persons. About six o'clock, Sweden- 
borg, after leaving the company for a little 
while, returned quite pale and alarmed, an- 
nouncing to them that a dangerous fire had 
just broken out in Stockholm, which is three 
hundred English miles from Gothenburg, at 
the Suder Malm, and that it was spreading 
very fast. He was restless and went out 
often. He told them that the house of one of 
his friends was already in ashes, and that his 
own was in danger. At eight o'clock, he 
joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God! the fire is 
extinguished the third door from my house." 
This incident occasioned great alarm through 
the whole city. It was announced to the 
Governor the same evening, who, on Sunday 
morning, sent for Swedenborg requesting him 
to relate the particulars of the fire, which he 
did. And on Monday evening a despatch 
arrived from Stockholm, bringing accounts of 
the fire precisely as Swedenborg had related. 
On Tuesday morning, the royal courier ar- 



22 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

rived at the Governor's, bringing the same 
accounts, and stating that the fire was ex- 
tinguished at eight o'clock.* 

To those who would pronounce the fore- 
going narratives impossible, we would ask, — 
By what superior wisdom are we enabled to 
decide what is possible and what is impossi- 
ble ? Some will answer that common sense 
and reason can decide. What is human 
reason ? Is it not another name for our own 
experience ? And whatever is foreign to our 
own experience is commonly said to be un- 
reasonable, deceiving ourselves as did the king 
of Siam, of whom Locke relates, in his Essay 
on Human Understanding, when the Dutch 
Ambassador told him of the cold being so 
intense in his country that it would sometimes 
congeal water into an icy substance sufficient- 
ly strong to sustain the weight of an elephant, 
the king, judging from his own experience, 
replied : " Hitherto 1 have believed the strange 
things you told me, because I look upon you 
as a sober, fair man; but noiv I am certain 

* For further particulars and other instances of the same 
nature, the reader is referred to " Noble's Appeal." 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 23 

you lie." In like manner to say, that by the 
means of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph, in- 
telligence can be communicated from Wash- 
ington to Baltimore in the space of one 
minute, must sound unreasonable to such 
persons as know nothing of electricity or 
magnetism. Almost all the scientific discover- 
ies, before they were known to be real, seemed 
unreasonable to such as judged of things by 
their poor experience, which they called com- 
mon sense and reason. We daily perceive that 
there are spiritual and natural mysteries which 
wholly baffle human reason. If this world 
and other worlds are the works of an Infinite 
Mind) how can our finite minds decide what 
He has made possible or impossible ? Until 
we know all that He knows, we are incompe- 
tent to decide what mysteries are possible and 
what impossible. For ages, things were be- 
lieved impossible, which at the present day 
are no more doubted than the commonest 
event in life. Before the true Solar System 
was understood, who had the slightest idea 
that night and morning were occasioned by 
the revolving of the earth on its axis ? Before 



24 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Franklin's discoveries, who considered it pos- 
sible to draw electricity from the clouds ? 
Before Harvey's time, was not even the 
circulation of the blood through the arteries 
(which till that period, 1628, had ever been 
supposed by the learned to be air-tubes, hence 
so called, because in death they are empty), 
"wholly unsuspected ? — which fact every 
schoolboy now fully understands. And yet 
for announcing it to the world, Harvey was 
persecuted through life ; his enemies styled 
him in derision, the Circulator, which in Latin 
signifies a vagabond or quack. He lost the 
greater part of his practice, and was forced to 
withdraw to an obscure corner in London. 
And Galileo, in the same century, was put to 
the rack for affirming that the earth revolved 
around the sun, which discovery was con- 
demned by the wise ones in these words: 
" Absurd, philosophically false, and formally 
heretic; it is expressly contrary to the Holy 
Scriptures." So much for that worldly wis- 
dom of incredulity which rejects great and 
useful truths. Well might the Apostle Paul 
say:— 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 25 

" But the natural man receiveth not the 
things of the spirit of God, for they are fool- 
ishness unto him; neither can he know them, 
because they are spiritually discerned." — 
(1 Cor. ii. 14.) 

This explains why so many reject the 
writings of Swedenborg. Such persons being 
incapable of spiritual discernment, owing to 
the gross, material character of their minds, 
are insensible to the wide difference between 
the natural man and the spiritual man. The 
poet* says — 

u Of all the causes which conspire to blind 
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, 
What the weak head with strongest bias rules, 
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. 
Whatever nature has in worth denied, 
She gives in large recruits of needful pride ; 
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find 
What wants in blood and spirits swelPd with wind ° 7 
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, 
And fills up all the mighty void of sense. 
If once right reason drives that cloud away, 
Truth breaks upon us with resistless day. 
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, 
Make use of every friend and every foe. 

* Alexander Pope. 



26 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

A little, learning is a dangerous thing, 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring ; 
There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, 
And drinking largely sobers us again. " 

And so will truth break upon every one with 
resistless day who earnestly seeks the light, 
and thoroughly investigates the writings of 
Swedenborg, if Ms heart and head be rights 
and not obstructed by Evil, Pride, and Preju- 
dice. There is abundant proof of the truth 
of Swedenborg's writings in the many wit- 
nesses in his favor, a few of whom we can 
name as follows : 

Rev. Thomas Hartley, M. A., Rector of Win- 
wick in Northamptonshire, who. was inti- 
mately acquainted with Swedenborg, received 
his writings, and translated into English his 
book on Heaven and Hell, in which labor he 
was joined by Mr. William Cookworthy, a 
superior character and celebrated amongst the 
Uterati of his day; General Tuxen; Dr. 
Gabriel Andrew Beyer, Professor of Greek and 
Latin literature ; Rev. Nicholas Collin, Pastor 
of the Swedish Church in Philadelphia, iv 
1817 ; the Chevalier de Sandel, Superintendent 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 27 

of the Mines, &c, &c. ; Count Andrew John 
Van Hopken, Prime Minister, &c., &c, all of 
whom were personally acquainted with Swe- 
denborg and his writings ; Rev. John Clowes, 
M. A., Rector of St. John's Church (Episco- 
pal), Manchester, England, during a period of 
sixty-two years ; he began reading the writings 
of Swedenborg in the year following the 
Author's death. "With the exception of some 
of the smaller works executed by others, Mr. 
Clowes was the translator of Swedenborg's 
works, and chief means of their first publication 
into English. His own works are numerous. 
He was born on 20th October, 1743, and died 
29th May, 1631, being nearly eighty-eight 
years of age. Two admirable monuments, in 
St. John's Church, testify to the high appre- 
ciation of him by his parishioners ; one of 
them was put up on the completion of the 
fiftieth year of his ministry. Rev. Thomas 
Goyder, a London minister of the New Jeru- 
salem Church, ordained in July 13, 1817. 
Rev. D. G. Goyder, another English minister 
of the New Jerusalem Church, ordained No- 
vember 3, 1822. James Hindmarsh, father of 



28 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

the late Rev. Robert Hindmarsh. He was 
one of the travelling preachers in the connec- 
tion of the Rev. John Wesley, and afterwards 
master of the Wesleyan school at Kingswood. 
On receiving the doctrines of the New Jerusa- 
lem Church, which were introduced to him 
by his son, he quitted the society of Metho- 
dists. He was the first who preached the 
New Doctrines in the Chapel in Great East 
Cheap, which was opened on the 27th January, 
1788 ; and it may truly be said that he was 
the first person in England who preached the 
Doctrines of the New Church separately and 
distinctly from the Old Church. Rev. Robert 
Hindmarsh, the son of James, was another 
English New Church minister for several 
years ; he wrote a most powerful work clearly 
demonstrating the fallacies of the Episcopal 
Doctrines, entitled, " The Church of England 
Weighed in the Balance of the Sanctuary, 
and found Wanting ; being an examination 
of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the 
three Creeds, and the Book of Common 
Prayer." He died in January, 1835, aged 
seventy-six. Rev. S. Noble, another English 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 29 

minister of the New Jerusalem Church, or- 
dained May 21, 1820, preached in London 
upwards of thirty years. He has greatly 
contributed to the promotion of the New 
Church by his pen. " Noble's Appeal in Be- 
half of the Doctrines of the New Church," is 
invaluable. 

As the theology of the New Christian 
Church was first published to the world by 
Swedenborg, we deemed it important that the 
reader should be furnished with the proofs 
that he was no visionary, but verily, as he 
claims to be, the servant of the Lord God, 
and that his theological writings were entirely 
by the direction of the Almighty, and no 
human fabrication of his own, 



30 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



CHAPTER III. 

The Value of Truth — What constitutes a True Church — The 
Scripture Criterion — The Claims of each Christian Sect — 
Superiority of True Doctrines — Way to discover the True 
Church — Why there are so many Christian Sects — Ne- 
cessity of New Light — The Jews' Expectation of the First 
Advent — Cause of their Disbelief — Equal Blindness of 
Christians with regard to the Second Advent — Who are 
called the Old Church, and who are called the New Church. 

As a spirit of Inquiry is abroad, and as 
there are many who wish to know, but have 
not the leisure or the necessary inclination to 
search thoroughly for the treasures of Truth 
in the depth of ponderous volumes, this brief 
explanation is offered for their perusal. The 
reflecting will see that it is their interest calmly 
and seriously to consider if they are, or are 
not, standing on the firm basis of Truth. If 
truth in anything is valuable, surely in Re- 
ligion it is most essentially so. It concerns 
every human being to know religious truth, as 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHUKCHES. 31 

it does most certainly affect our present and 
future happiness. If our knowing the truths 
of any fact or incident will have an influence 
upon our actions, — if our being acquainted 
with the true character of a friend or foe will 
also influence our actions, — it is manifest that 
to know the truth of these higher matters is of 
importance to us. And will not also a know- 
ledge of the true character of God and of the 
doctrines of our religion influence our actions ? 
Can it be that a knowledge of the truth in 
temporal concerns is so far more important 
than a knowledge of the truth in spiritual 
affairs, that the former will wholly alter our 
motives and actions, whilst the latter leaves 
our motives and actions uninfluenced ? No 
rational, reflecting man can, in sober serious- 
ness, believe that the truth of spiritual doctrine 
is less influential upon us than the truth of 
temporal facts. If, then, a knowledge of the 
truth in Religion may influence our motives, 
actions, thoughts, and feelings, it is of the 
utmost importance to us, as on it will very 
materially depend our present and future weal 
or woe. 



32 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Taking it for granted that this will be con 
ceded by all unprejudiced and reasonable per- 
sons, I would ask them if the result must not 
be, that Truth of Doctrine constitutes a Trite 
Church ? Can that be a True Church whose 
Doctrines are false ? And can that be a False 
Church whose Doctrines are true ? Can that 
be a corrupt tree whose fruits are good ? Or 
can that be a good tree whose fruits are evil ? 
(Mat. vii. 17, 18.) Christ shows that true 
doctrine must be practical, in these words : 
u Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, 
and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
man, which built his house upon a rock ; " 
[rock, in the science of correspondence, means 
Truth). " And the rain descended, and the 
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat 
upon that house, and it fell not, for it was 
founded upon a rock. And every one that 
heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, 
which built his house upon the sand ; and the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the 
winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it 
fell, and great was the fall of it. And the 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 33 

people were astonished at his Doctrine." 
(Matt. vii. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28.) Hence, this 
union of Faith and Charity, i. e. a good life, 
which must include good works founded upon 
true principles of religion. THIS is what is 
meant by TRUE DOCTRINE, and this 
True Doctrine is the Scripture criterion which 
constitutes a True Church.* What right, 
then, have we to make any other? 

Let each Christian sect boast as it will that 
its religion is wholly the same as the Apos- 
tolic Church ; still, if its doctrines are false, it 
cannot be the True Christian Church. Each 
Christian sect claims its own, in distinction 
from the others, to be the doctrines of the 
Apostolic Church. Now, it is very certain 
this cannot be strictly true of them aW, as they 
do not agree with each other. Some also 
claim to be direct descendants of the Apostles, 
with regard to church government and other 
minor matters ; and as this is also disputed to 
the exclusion of others who also claim the 

* " The Church is called a Church from Doctrine, and Re- 
ligion is called so from a life according to Doctrine." (See 
A. R. 923.) 



34 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

like, it would be very difficult for an impartial 
and disinterested judge to determine which 
has the truest claim. But this is of no account 
in comparison to the holding true doctrines. 
As we have seen, they constitute The Church ; 
hence, to get at the truth, all denominations 
should examine the doctrines of each con- 
tained in their written creed, and compare 
them with the doctrines contained in the writ- 
ten Bible, and where they are at variance, that 
sect must be wrong. Hence, it becomes the 
duty of every one to " search the Scriptures ; " 
to compare them with themselves ; and when- 
ever he finds a passage which, as he under- 
stands it, directly contradicts some other pas- 
sage of the Holy Book, let him be sure that 
he misunderstands it. It is because Christians 
have so frequently selected certain favorite 
texts in the Bible, and based their creed upon 
them, neglecting to attach equal importance to 
others, which seemed opposed to those of their 
choice,— it is from this unfair proceeding that 
so many different Christian sects have arisen. 
Does there not then appear a necessity for new 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. oO 

Christian light to show them the Truth, and 
wherein they err ? 

The Truth had departed from Israel when 
it became necessary that the light of Christi- 
anity should dawn upon the world. It was 
predicted in their Scriptures that this would 
happen ; yet, it is evident, they misunderstood 
the prediction, as they expected a warrior and 
earthly king to restore the earthly kingdom to 
them. And when the event occurred as pre- 
dicted, most of them who had believed in the 
prediction of the First Advent of the Lord, 
would not believe its realization when it ac- 
tually occurred ; because, in their wilful igno- 
rance, they had expected the event to occur in 
a different manner from that in which it really 
did. And though the remarkable changes re- 
sulting from the event, for a period of eighteen 
hundred years, should convince them that the 
First Advent is past, still, even at this day, 
many of the numerous Jews spread through- 
out the world will not believe but that the 
First Advent is still to come. Christians deem 
this to be an unaccountable blindness to the 
Truth, and justly so, certainly ; but are not 



36 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



Christians in the same state of blindness when 
they will not believe that the Second Advent 
has also occurred, notwithstanding the equally 
remarkable evidences of the fact ? Their re- 
jection of the Truth is owing to the very same 
cause as the rejection of the Truth by the 
Jews, viz., because the event has occurred in a 
different manner from what they expected. 
Those who reject this Truth of the second 
advent having already occurred, we call the 
Old Christian Church ; and those who receive 
this Truth we call the New Christian Church. 
We will presently endeavor to show that 
the view of the latter is Scriptural and reason- 
able, whilst that of The Old Christian Church 
is the reverse. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Old Church Idea of the Spiritual Sense of the Bible — What 
every Humble Christian will confess — New Church Belief 
of the Spiritual Sense — Proofs of its Truth — Of the 
Second Advent — Proofs that it cannot be as literally de- 
scribed — Destruction of the World — Account of the Ver- 
sions of the Bible — Luther — True Meaning of the Second 
Advent — Remarkable Similarity of Language in the Pre- 
dictions of the End of the Jewish and of the End of the 
First Christian Churches — Of the Internal or Spiritual 
Sense of Scripture — Declaration of its Existence by the 
Lord and the Apostle Paul — Quotation from Swedenborg 
concerning Peter. 

The Old Christian Church generally have 
a vague idea that there exists in the Bible a 
spiritual sense, besides the literal ; and, in all 
ages of the church, great and learned divines 
have been of this opinion. But they have 
deemed this sense uncertain ; varying with 
the different classes of minds of the inter- 
preters, they have not known any fixed laws 



38 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



of interpretation. They have perceived (as 
every attentive and reflecting reader of Scrip- 
ture must perceive) that many passages are 
dark ; some seeming directly to contradict 
others, some seeming to teach immorality, 
and some to be wholly incomprehensible. They 
have felt, therefore, that there must be a sense 
which does not appear in the letter, and which 
will reconcile all those apparent discrepancies ; 
or otherwise it cannot be the Word of God, — 
possessing defects greater even than many 
merely human compositions ! The thing is 
impossible. Every wise and good Christian 
feels that the Word of God must be infinitely 
superior to any word of man, — that it must 
be like its Divine Author, Perfect; and every 
humble Christian will confess that, if he can- 
not see its perfection, the defect must be in 
his understanding, and not in the Word itself. 

For instance, in Ezekiel, chap, xxxix., if there 
be no internal sense, what is to be understood 
by a feast of blood, of horses, of chariots, and 
of mighty men of war ? 

" And thou Son of Man, thus saith the Lord 
God, speak to the fowl of every wing, and to 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 39 

every beast of the field, assemble yourselves, 
and come, and gather yourselves on every 
side to the sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, 
(even) a great sacrifice upon the mountains of 
Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. 
Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink 
the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, 
of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, of all them 
fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat till ye 
be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of 
my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. 
Thus shall ye be filled at my table with horses 
and chariots, with mighty men and all men of 
war, saith the Lord God." 

Or what is, in the literal sense, to be under- 
stood by the key of the bottomless pit being 
given to a star ? — as in Rev. ix. 

" And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a 
star fall from heaven unto the earth ; and to 
him was given the key of the bottomless pit. 
And there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the 
smoke of a great furnace ; and the sun and 
the air were darkened by reason of the smoke 
of the pit. And there came out of the smoke 
locusts upon the earth; and unto them was 



40 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



given power, as the scorpions of the earth 
have power. And it was commanded them 
that they should not hurt the grass of the 
earth, neither any green thing, neither any 
tree, but only those men which have not the 
seal of God in their foreheads. And to them 
it was given that they should not kill them, 
but that they should be tormented five months ; 
and their torment was as the torment of a 
scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in 
those days shall men seek death, and shall not 
find it ; and shall desire to die, and death shall 
flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts 
were like unto horses prepared unto battle ; 
and on their heads were as it were crowns 
like gold, and their faces were as the faces of 
men. And they had hair as the hair of women, 
and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 
And they had breastplates of iron ; and the 
sound of their wings was as the sound of 
chariots, of many horses running to battle. 
And they had tails like unto scorpions, and 
there were stings in their tails ; and then- 
power was to hurt men five months. And 
they had a king over them, which is the angel 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 41 

of the bottomless pit, whose name in the He- 
brew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek 
tongue hath his name Apollyon. One woe is 
past ; and, behold, there come two woes more 
hereafter." 

As there are innumerable such passages in 
the Bible, and others of a different description, 
but equally puzzling in the mere letter, every 
true Christian feels that there is a hidden 
meaning, which human knowledge cannot 
reach without some fixed laics of interpreta- 
tion, which will serve as a key to unlock the 
hidden treasures of the Word. The Old Church 
do not believe that such a key has been found ; 
the New Church know that it has pleased 
God, in this our glorious age, to Reveal it to 
us. In His infinite wisdom, He has fixed 
upon this as the most fitting time for the In- 
ternal Truths of His Word to come into the 
world, and thereby Himself to be made 
known. This, we believe, is the true meaning 
of the Second Coming of the Lord, who calls 
Himself the "Word and the Truth. It is the 
coming of the Internal Truth of the Word to 
men's minds by a direct and distinct Revela- 



42 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

tion of the fixed laws of interpretation, which 
has been so much felt to be needed, w T hich we 
believe is the true doctrine of the Second 
Coming of the Lord. We believe that it 
pleased God to make Swedenborg the instru- 
ment of publishing this Internal Truth of Scrip- 
ture to the world, by a special Revelation to 
him of the science of Correspondences, accord- 
ing to which the whole of His Word is com- 
posed. We can show the most unanswerable 
proofs of this being a fact ; and yet the Old 
Christian Church, like the Jews, will not re- 
ceive the new dispensation, because they have 
long expected, and do still expect, the Second 
Coming of the Lord to be in Person, and on 
the watery clouds of the atmosphere ; though 
this can be clearly shown to be a misunder- 
standing of Scripture, and, at the same time, 
involves so much absurdity that it is extra- 
ordinary that any rational mind can receive it. 
They also believe that it is predicted that this 
globe will be destroyed by fire, and that the 
Heavens also will pass away ; that the whole 
grand work of creation will be destroyed, — 
this work which God himself pronounced 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 43 

" Very Good ! " though no rational reason 
can be assigned for events so tremendously 
horrible, appalling and terrific ! How incon- 
sistent to suppose that such a deed of carnage 
and ruin is to be executed by a being whose 
character is Perfect Love ! Must not every 
true believer in the infinite Benevolence of 
God feel that this cannot be ? Has he not an 
intuitive conviction that there must be some 
error, some mistake, which has led men to 
believe that the Creator of this stupendous 
Universe is capable of a deed of wantonness 
so contradictory to his character as a kind, 
benevolent, and loving Father ? 

If Scripture really teaches the destruction 
of the universe, it contradicts itself when it 
says : " One generation passeth away, and 
another generation cometh, but the earth abideth 
forever." (Eccl. i. 4.) And, " Who laid the 
foundations of the earth that it should not be 
removed forever" (Ps. civ. 5.) It is known 
and admitted by every Greek scholar, of what- 
ever religious sect, that the Greek words " he 
sunteleia tou aionos " mean, not " the end of 
the world," as is read in our common English 



44 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

version, but " the consummation of the age." 
Axon means an age, a life, or any full period, 
whether long or short ; and sunteleia means 
the end, consummation, or finishing of that 
period. (See Schleusner's Greek and Latin 
Lexicon.) Therefore, " the end of the world " 
is an incorrect translation. 

Some persons object to our finding fault 
with the common English version, and seem 
to think it quite a sin to do so, as if it were 
the only perfect version, and as if Biblical 
critics of other churches did not the same. 
This bigoted adherence to the present English 
version of the Bible is a glaring evidence of 
ignorance. All learned Biblical critics have 
pronounced it faulty. And, if it be perfectly 
correct, several hundred other versions must be 
incorrect Too many unlearned readers seem 
to imagine that our common version has been 
for ages received by the world in general ; 
while, in reality, it is scarcely known any- 
where except in Britain and America, and in 
these places only for a little more than two 
hundred years, as it was first published in 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 45 

1611.* An acquaintance with the immense 
number of the different Versions of the Bible, 
and of the great number of manuscripts in the 
original tongue, differing from each other, 
whence these versions have been made, must 
convince the reasonable reader that no version 
can, in all particulars, be implicitly depended 
upon as strictly the very Words of God ; thus 
he will be prepared to feel the necessity, at 
this day, of a further revelation, that we may 
indeed know the truth. 

The Scriptures have been translated into 
about ninety different languages and dialects, 
and, of course, there are as many different ver- 
sions. Besides, there have been nearly one 
hundred different editions of the Hebrew 
Bible ; about three hundred and fifty editions 
of the Greek Testament ; versions made im- 
mediately from Hebrew, sixty ; versions of Old 
Testament made from Greek, twenty-five ; of 
the New Testament, about eighty. The fol- 
lowing is a brief account of the number of 
versions made into other languages from trans- 

* See Fesseuden & Co.'s Encyclopaedia of Religious Know- 
ledge. 



46 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

lated versions (for further particulars, see Fes- 
senden & Co.'s Encyclopaedia of Religious 
Knowledge) ; viz. versions made from Syriac, 
two ; from Latin, sixteen ; from German, nine ; 
from English, three ; from Ethiopic, one ; from 
Armenian, one ; from Sclavonic, five. The 
different translated versions amount to two 
hundred and three. There are eleven hundred 
and nine Hebrew MSS. Samaritan MSS. of 
the Pentateuch, nineteen. The number extant 
of Greek MSS. of the Old Testament is not 
yet known, but Dr. Holmes collated one hun- 
dred and thirty-five. Greek MSS. of the New 
Testament about eleven hundred. Now, when 
we know that there have been so large a 
number of different versions of the Bible, all 
having their merits and demerits, how are we 
to be sure that King James's version is the 
only correct one, and that it is entirely so ? 
"When, too, it was not known to the world till 
the seventeenth century ! Other versions in 
the English language were equally esteemed 
in their day. 

The following is a brief account of the 
English versions of the Bible; viz. the first 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 47 

translated into English was by J. Wickliff, in 
1360. More than thirteen hundred years had 
elapsed before there was an English version ! 
2d. By De Trevisa, who died 1398. 3d. By 
W. Tindal, which was the first printed in 
English, in 1526 ; the New Testament only ; 
afterwards the whole, in 1532. 4th. The one 
called Matthews' Bible was an improvement 
on Tindal's by Coverdale and John Rogers, 
1537, dedicated to Henry VIII. 5th. The 
first published by authority in England was 
in 1540, called Cranmer's Bible, and was Tin- 
dal's version revised. 6th. The Geneva Bible, 
translated by seven English exiles, at Geneva, 
1560. 7th. In 1568, translated by the Bishops 
and other learned men; it was called the 
Great English Bible, or Bishop's Bible. 8th. 
A corrected version of the Bishop's Bible, in 
1572, was called Matthew Parker's Bible. It 
was used in the churches for forty years, 
though the Geneva Bible was more read in 
private families. Then there were two private 
versions of the New Testament ; vizo, the one, 
9th, by Lawrence Thompson, in 1582, from 
Beza's Latin edition. The other, 10th, by 



48 POINTS OF DIFFERExXCE BETWEEN 

the Papists of Rheims, in 1584, called the 
Rhemish Bible, or translation. 11th. In 1609 
- 10 the Roman Catholics published an English 
translation of the Old Testament at Douay, 
from the Vulgate ; since which time the En- 
glish Roman Catholics have the whole in their 
mother tongue. 

And then came the 12th version, which is 
our common English version, and is called 
King James's Bible. It was made by forty- 
seven learned men, and was published in 
1611. Luther is highly venerated as the 
founder of the Protestant Church, and yet, 
without any higher authority than his own 
finite judgment, upon grounds merely arbi- 
trary, he prefers some books before others, and 
rejects several altogether ; viz. the Apocalypse 
and the Epistle of James, which he does not 
deem either apostolic or prophetic books. 
And he makes of no account, viz. the Epistles 
to the Hebrews and Jude. He values the 
Epistles of Paul and Peter far above the Gos- 
pels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (See ex- 
tracts from Luther's works, as quoted by Wel- 
stein in the learned Prolegomena to his famous 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 49 

critical edition of the New Testament; and 
see Noble's Plenary Inspiration, App. No. II. 
Also, Int. Rep. for Jan. 1827, pp. 364-379.) 
The Church of Rome accept as the Word of 
God not only the whole of the books com- 
prised in the Protestant Bible, but all the 
Apocrypha, — Tobit and his dog, — Bel and 
the Dragon, — to boot. 

Now, after reading this account of the un- 
certainty of what is truly the Bible, can any 
reflecting man see no necessity of a further 
Revelation to show us what is truly the Word 
of God? The New Church receive only such 
books as THE WORD OF GOD which are 
the dictations of God Himself, and hence con- 
tain an Internal sense throughout. They are 
as follows, viz., Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 
Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I. & 
II. Samuel, I. & II. Kings, Psalms, Isaiah, 
and all the other Prophets of the Old Testa- 
ment. In the New Testament, the Gospels 
of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, together 
with the Revelation or Apocalypse of John. 
The Epistles the New Church receive as 
written by inspiration, but not strictly by the 



50 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

dictation of God, but rather in the language 
of men who sometimes wrote misunderstand- 
ingly. Swedenborg declares GOD to be his 
authority for making this distinction between 
the several books of the Bible. 

God inspired men of old to write His 
Word ; and man has since so corrupted its 
doctrines, that further light is needed to dis- 
tinguish the gold from the dross. God knew 
that man would thus pervert the truth of His 
Holy Word, and therefore he promised that 
He would come again to teach us the Truth, 
and save us from the total darkness which 
was fearfully extinguishing the light of the 
Gospel. He promised that we. should see 
Him again, not with our natural eyes, but 
with the eyes of our understanding. And as 
it had pleased Him to make use of the instru- 
mentality of men to write His Word, it now 
pleased Him, in his infinite Wisdom, to illu- 
mine the understanding of another man to 
expound His Word to the world, and make 
clear to the capacity or apprehension of men, 
the light of Truth shining through the thick 
clouds which had gathered over His Divine 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 51 

Word, " and hid His face." Is it not manifest 
that this is the true meaning of the Second 
Coming of the Lord to judge men. Rev. xix., 
11, 13, where, in figurative language, the Lord 
is described, (each particular of which can be 
understood by the science of correspondence ; 
but is totally incomprehensible without it.) 
He is said to be " called Faithful and True ; 
and in righteousness he doth judge. And His 
name is called THE WORD OF GOD." 
Hence the True meaning of the Word of 
God, which is to descend into the understand- 
ings of men from Heaven, (as all Truths are 
thence,) and is to clear away the darkness 
that has obscured the light of the Scriptures ; 
and to show man what are the Truths by 
which they are to be judged, which is right- 
eous judgment. Thus, to exhibit the Character 
of God in its true light, and what He truly 
teaches in His sacred Scriptures, i. e. which 
are the True doctrines of Christianity, and 
which embrace a truly righteous life. This is 
what is meant by the descending from heaven 
the Holy City, New Jerusalem, i. e. (the True 



52 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

and New Church,) and by the Second Coming 
of the Lord, or, the Word of God. 

The Old Church understand by the " Con- 
summation of the Age," the End of the "World. 
The New Church understand by it, the end 
of the (then existing) first Christian Dispensa- 
tion, or Old Church. And if this latter be not 
the true meaning, it is certainly very strange, 
that the language of the prophecy should be 
so very similar to the language that predicts 
the end of the Jewish Church. In the chap- 
ters of the New Testament foretelling the 
" Consummation of the Age," and the Second 
Coming of the Lord, it is said, Matt. xxiv. 
29 ; Mark. xiii. 24, 25,) " The sun shall be 
darkened^ and the moon shall not give her light, 
and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the 
powers of the heavens shall be shaken" In 
the Old Testament, where the Lord's First 
Advent, and the destruction of the Jewish 
Church is foretold, it is said, (Joel ii. 10, 30, 
31,) " The earth shall quail before Him, the 
heavens shall tremble, the sun and moon shall 
be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their 
shining and I will show wonders 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 53 

in the heavens, and in the earth, blood and 
fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be 
turned into darkness and the moon into blood, 
before the great and terrible day of Jehovah 
come." Also of the First Advent, in Isaiah 
(xiii. 10, 13,) " For the stars of heaven and the 
constellations thereof shall not give their light ; 
the snn shall be darkened in his going forth, 
and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. 
Therefore will I shake the heavens, and the 
earth shall remove out of her place" 

It is very certain that when the Jewish 
Church was superseded by the first Christian 
Church at the First Advent of the Lord, the 
things here predicted, did not happen literally 
to the natural world; why, then, are they 
expected by the Old Church to happen at the 
Second Coming ? Simply because the inter- 
nal meaning of the words is not understood 
by them. But by the science of correspon- 
dences the meaning is made plain ; and in 
that sense what is there predicted did all hap- 
pen at the First Advent, as it has also at the 
Second. 

Any interpretation of Scripture which in- 



54 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

volves a manifest absurdity, cannot be the true 
interpretation. How, then, can it be true, that 
the Scriptures teach that the very stars which 
we behold over our heads are literally to fall to 
this earth, when one single star is immensely 
larger than this earth ? Yet this is believed 
by the Old Church in general. The New 
Church do not believe it. 

Of the Internal or Spiritual sense of the 
Bible, there is abundant evidence besides the 
positive assertion by the Lord and by Paul, 
thus : " Our Lord Jesus Christ, declared in 
the synagogue of the Jews, ' I am the living 
bread which came down from heaven : if any 
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: 
and the bread that I will give is my flesh, 
which I will give for the life of the world.' 
(John vi. 51.) And when the Jews who heard 
him, ' strove among themselves, saying, How 
can this man give us his flesh to eat ? then 
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in 
you. Who so eateth my flesh and drinketh 
my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 55 

him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat 
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.' (v. 52, 
53, 54.) It is recorded that ' many of his dis- 
ciples, when they heard this, said, This is an 
hard saying; who can hear it?' Then the 
Lord adds, by way of explanation : i It is 
the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth 
nothing ; the words that I speak unto you are 
spirit and are life? " (v. 63.) 

" We should serve in newness of Spirit and 
not in the oldness of the Letter." (Rom. vii. 6.) 
" God, who also hath made us able ministers 
of the New Testament, not of the Letter, but 
of the Spirit : for the Letter killeth, but the 
Spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. iii. 6.) 

If the understanding of Scripture according 
to the Letter alone will lead to false doctrines, 
is not that a proof that another mode of inter- 
pretation must exist? Swedenborg gives an 
instance of this in the following words: — 
(A. C.N. 3750.) 

" Into what mistakes they fall, who abide 
in the sense of the Letter alone, without 
searching out the Internal sense from other 
passages where it is explained in the Word, 



56 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

may appear manifestly from the number of 
heresies, every one of which confirms its dog- 
ma from the literal sense of the word ; espe- 
cially from that great heresy, which the mad 
and infernal love of self and the world has de- 
duced from the Lord's words to Peter : < I say 
unto thee, that thou art Peter, and on this rock 
will I build my church, and the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it ; and I will give 
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the hea- 
vens, and whatever thou shalt bind on earth, 
shall be bound in the heavens, and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in 
the heavens.' (Matt. xvi. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.) 
They who rest upon the literal sense, suppose 
that these words were spoken of Peter, and 
that to him so great power was given : when 
yet they know, that Peter was a very simple 
man, and that he never exercised such power, 
and that to exercise it was against the Divine ; 
nevertheless, because from the mad and infer- 
nal love of self and of the world, they would 
arrogate to themselves the highest power on 
earth and in heaven, and make themselves 
gods, they explain this according to the letter, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 57 

and vehemently defend such explanations, 
when yet the internal sense of those words is, 
that essential Faith in the Lord, which is with 
those only who are in love to the Lord, and in 
charity towards the neighbor, has that power, 
and yet not faith, but the Lord from whom 
faith is ; by rock is here meant that faith, as 
in other passages throughout the "Word ; on 
that the church is built, and against that the 
gates of hell do not prevail ; and to that faith 
belongs the keys of the kingdom of the 
heavens; that shuts heaven to prevent the 
entrance of evils and falses, and opens heaven 
for goods and truths; such is the internal 
sense of the above words. The twelve Apos- 
tles, like the twelves tribes of Israel, represented 
nothing else but all the things pertaining to 
such faith, (see n. 177, 2089, 2129, 2130.) 
Peter represented faith itself, James charity, 
and John works of charity (see the preface to 
chapter xviii. of Genesis) ; in like manner, 
Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, Jacob's first born, 
in the representative Jewish and Israelitish 
church, as is manifest from a thousand pas- 
sages in the Word; and because Peter had 



58 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

relation to faith, the above words w^ere spoken 
to him. Hence it is evident into what dark- 
ness they cast themselves, and others with 
themselves, who explain all things according 
to the letter, as in the instance of the above 
words to Peter, whereby they arrogate to 
themselves the power of saving mankind." 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 59 



CHAPTER V. 

Old Church Doctrine of the Last Judgment — What does not 
alter the Creed of a Church — A great Episcopal Minister's 
Opinion of the Corner Stone of Christianity — Proof that 
the Dead have not to wait for a General Day of Resurrection 
— Inconsistency of the Old Church with regard to the Last 
Judgment and Resurrection of the Material Body — What 
Paul says of the Resurrection of the Natural Body — The 
New Church agreeing with Paul — The Consequence — 
The Last Judgment Relative to each one — Particulars in 
regard to General Judgments — Reasons why the Revela- 
tions for the New Church were not made sooner. 

The doctrine involved in that of the Second 
Coming of the Lord is a General Judgment. 
The Old Church, principally the Roman Cath- 
olics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists 
and Methodists, if I mistake not, believe that 
at the Second Coming of the Lord, and de- 
struction of the world, all who have died from 
the time of the creation will then rise to life. 



60 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

on this earth, in their natural body, or some- 
thing of the same nature, at all events of 
material substance. And that then, on this 
earth, all are to appear before the Lord, who 
is to pass judgment upon them, some having 
been dead many thousands of years, and that 
thence, each is to be sent either to heaven or 
to hell. This absurd doctrine is taught in the 
books and pulpits of the Old Church. And 
though there are some individuals among 
these various sects who have too much sense 
to believe it, that does not make it the less 
the creed of the church they profess to believe 
in. The creed of a church is not what each 
professor thinks, but what its church books 
teach, or what is taught by its ministers. 
And though some Episcopalians deny that 
the Resurrection of the material body is 
taught in their church, there are witnesses 
who recently heard this doctrine preached in 
an Episcopal church, by a Reverend Doctor 
of Divinity; who said that to reject it would 
be to u overturn the Corner Stone of Chris- 
tianity." And this Rev. D. D. is, perhaps, 
one of our greatest American preachers, whose 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 61 

very name, for years, caused persons to rush 
in crowds to hear his display of eloquence 
and talent. And none, perhaps, among our 
American Episcopal Clergy have been deemed 
more gifted. Yet it is well known that Christ 
has declared openly that the resurrection of 
the dead has already taken place, as may be 
seen in Matt. xxii. 31, 32, where he says : 
" But as touching the resurrection of the dead, 
have ye not read that which was spoken unto 
you by God, saying, I am the God of Abra- 
ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob ? God is not the God of the dead, but 
of the living." He here teaches that Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob are still living. He 
says the Lord is the God of them^ but he is 
not the God of the dead — that is, they are 
not dead, but are living, and He is their God. 
Yet Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had died like 
other men, but their real life was not inter- 
rupted by the death of the body. They still 
continued to live in the spiritual world. Their 
resurrection had taken place immediately after 
the death, of their natural body. And hence, 
the Lord, who is here proving the doctrine of 



62 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

the resurrection to the unbelieving Sadducees, 
calls them the living, because they had risen 
from the dead. 

Though the members of these churches 
profess to believe that all the dead must wait 
for one grand day of resurrection and last judg- 
ment, they practically deny it, each time they 
offer consolation to the afflicted whose homes 
death has visited. They do not then think of 
the grand day of Judgment, when the lament- 
ed will live again. They do not then scruple 
to console the sorrowing by telling them not 
to grieve for the loved ones, as they are now 
happy in heaven. They then remember that 
Christ said, " God is not the God of the dead, 
but of the living." They then admit that 
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom 
of God." (1 Corinthians, xv. 50.) But at 
other times, when their feelings are mute, they 
insist upon it, that the resurrection of no one 
takes place till the end of the world ; when all 
will be on this earth again, clothed with the 
bodies w r hich have long been decomposed, 
and have served to form earth, worms, grass, 
vegetables, trees, food for animals, and pro- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 63 

gressively particles of other human bodies. 
At such times they think only of the natural 
body, which is of the " earth, earthy;" wholly 
forgetting that the soul or spirit within is the 
only immortal part. And, though these same 
persons profess to believe the Apostle Paul, 
they take no heed of his words in the plainest 
language declaring that their doctrine of the 
resurrection is a false doctrine, thus : " But 
some men will say, how are the dead raised 
up? and tvith what body do they come? 
Thou fool, that which thou soivest, is not quick- 
ened except it die : and that which thou soicest, 
thou sowest not that body that shall be, 
but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or some 
other. But God giveth it a body as it hath 
pleased him, and to every seed his own body. 
There are also Celestial Bodies and Bodies 
Terrestrial : but the glory of the Celestia lis 
one, and the glory of the Terrestrial is another. 
So, also, in the resurrection of the dead; it is 
sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spirit- 
ual body. There is a natural body, and 



64 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY." (1 Cor. XV. 35, 

36, 37, 38, 40, 42, 44.) 

In conformity with this very plain declara- 
tion of the Apostle, the New Church believe 
as did the Apostolic, that in the spiritual 
world, we live in Spiritual Bodies, and not 
in natural bodies, which last belong to nature, 
and have never been shown to be immortal. 
If, then, our resurrection is in a spiritual body, 
it must be in a world suited to it, i. e., a 
spiritual world, and not in this natural world. 
Natural things belong to a natural world, and 
spiritual things to a spiritual world. Hence, 
if our spiritual bodies are judged in the spir- 
itual world, it follows as an inevitable conse- 
quence, that the last judgment takes place in 
the spiritual world, and not on this, our little 
earth. "We believe that the time of the death 
of man's natural body is the time of the resur- 
rection of his spiritual body into the spiritual 
world, and that then, also, is the time of his 
last judgment. That last is relative to each 
one, his natural death being his last day and 
his last time of judgment. We also believe 
in times of a general judgment when many are 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 65 

judged together, but that such are now passed. 
That now each individual is judged at the 
time of his natural death. That as the last 
dispensation, or last Church called the New 
Jerusalem, and described in figurative lan- 
guage in the Apocalypse, has come, order in 
the spiritual world is so completely restored, 
that there will be no more need of General 
Judgments. 

From the Old Church doctrine that all the 
dead who have lived on this earth are obliged 
to wait till the end of the world that all man- 
kind may be judged together, no use can 
possibly be shown to result, but rather that it 
would be a partial and unjust decree, and 
as God never does anything useless nor un- 
just, this doctrine must be a misunderstanding 
of His Word. In the New Church view of a 
General Judgment can be shown both use 
and benevolence. To make the subject clearer 
it will be necessary to enter into particulars. 

We believe that this world has communi- 
cation with God through the medium of 
angels and spirits, and that hence the state 
of mankind depends on the influx (i. e. influ- 



66 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

ence) received from the spiritual world : from 
Heaven and from Hell. And as Heaven and 
Hell are formed from mankind, Heaven will 
predominate if the greater number who die in 
this world are good ; and Hell will predomi- 
nate if the greater number who die are evil. 
In this manner the equilibrium between 
Heaven and Hell will perish. Thus, when 
many go to Hell and few to Heaven, evil in 
this world predominates over good ; as wick- 
edness in this world increases as Hell in- 
creases, and goodness in this world increases 
as Heaven increases ; all evil being derived 
to man from Hell, and all good from Heaven. 
Hence by the increased wickedness of this 
world, the influx from Hell may be so far 
greater than from Heaven, that at length all 
mankind must perish if God did not restore 
order (for all evil is a state of disorder) in the 
spiritual world, the effect of which is imme- 
diately felt in this world. Therefore we be- 
lieve that when the Church on earth became 
so corrupted that it was no longer a true 
church, a general judgment took place and a 
New Church was established. The general 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 67 

judgment was not on such as were in heaven, 
nor in hell, nor in what, strictly speaking, we 
call the world of spirits, yet they were in a 
certain region of the spiritual world, and these 
spirits had there formed to themselves the 
imaginary likeness of a heaven. They were 
chiefly those who had lived in the world in 
external but not in internal sanctity ; who 
were just and sincere for the sake of moral 
and civil laws, but not for the sake of Divine 
laws ; who were also in the doctrinals of the 
Church and were able to teach them, but 
whose lives, affections and motives were not 
grounded in genuine goodness ; and who had 
done useful things, but not for the sake of 
usefulness. Such were the goats mentioned 
in Matt. xxv. 32, 33. These are they who 
constituted what is called the "first heaven, 
which passed away." As they had some 
little communication with the real heaven, 
evil influence was felt by mankind through 
them. Hence the necessity of destroying 
these imaginary heavens and earths, which 
their church is called. This was effected by 
a general judgment; and a New Church on 



68 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

our earth was the result. We believe that 
three such general judgments have been effect- 
ed. The first at the end of that Church which 
we think is described by the Flood, when the 
Jewish Church was established. The second 
when the Lord was on earth in person at the 
end of the Jewish Church, and the First 
Christian Church was established. " And 
Jesus said, For Judgment I am come into 
this world." (John ix. 39.) " Now is the 
Judgment of this world ; now shall the prince 
of this world be cast out." (John xii. 31.) 
The third general judgment was effected at 
the second coming of the Lord, at the end of 
the First Christian Church and establishment 
of the second and last Christian Church, called 
the New Jerusalem Church. They all had 
one and the same object, viz: the restoration 
of Truth and Goodness. Swedenborg in his 
book on the Last Judgment says, " That 
before the Last Judgment was effected upon 
them (such as had formed to themselves 
imaginary heavens in the spiritual world), 
much of the communication between heaven 
and the world, therefore between the Lord 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 69 

and the Church, was intercepted. All enlight- 
enment comes to man from the Lord through 
heaven and enters by an internal way. So 
long as there were congregations of such 
spirits between heaven and the world, or be- 
tween the Lord and the Church, man was 
unable to be enlightened. It was as when a 
sunbeam is cut off by a black interposing 
cloud, or as when the sun is eclipsed, and 
its light arrested, by the interjacent moon. 
Wherefore, if anything had been then revealed 
by the Lord, either it would not have been 
understood, or if understood, still it would not 
have been received, or if received, still it 
would afterwards have been suffocated. Now 
since all these interposing congregations were 
dissipated by the Last Judgment, it is plain 
that the communication between heaven and 
the world, or between the Lord and the 
Church, has been restored. Hence it is, that 
after the Last Judgment, and not sooner, reve- 
lations were made for the New Church." * 

♦For further particulars concerning General Judgments 
the reader is referred to a small volume by Swedenborg, 
concerning the Last Judgment. 



70 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

From this it is clear that Infinite Wisdom 
forsaw that no good could be effected by the 
revelations of the New Jerusalem till the 
world had become in a more suitably receptive 
state. In agreement with which the Lord 
teaches in the Scriptures : " Give not that 
which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye 
your pearls before swine, lest they trample 
them under their feet, and turn again and 
rend you." (Matt. viL 6.) Therefore the Lord 
accommodated the light he gave in proportion 
to our ability to receive. For even an earthly 
father has the wisdom to refrain from the 
attempt to teach his child the sciences before 
he is able to learn the alphabet. - 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 71 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the Character of God — Contradictory Description of Him 
by the Episcopalians — Roman Catholics — Calvinists — 
Reference for Proofs of the Fallacy of the Episcopal Church 

— Impeachment of the Wisdom of God — His Repenting 

— Punishment Explained — Fate of Infants — God a Glo- 
rious Divine Man — The Virgin Mary — Explanatory 
Quotation of the Divine Humanity — Tri-Personality — 
Texts of Scripture opposed to the Unitarians. 

Another Grand Point of Difference be- 
tween the Old and New Church is, the views 
entertained by each of the Character of God. 
The views of the former on this subject are 
irrational and unscriptural, as may be per- 
ceived by a mind not prepossessed by the old 
theology. For instance, let him in sober se- 
riousness endeavor to realize what sort of 
Being the God of the Episcopalians is, from 
the description of Him in the Articles of 
Eeligion in their Prayer Book, and in their 
sermons, and he will see that the account is 



72 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

contradictory, and denying Him some of His 
Infinite attributes. In the first Article it is 
said : " There is but one living and true God, 
everlasting, without Body, parts or passions. 
And in unity of this Godhead, there be three 
Persons of one Substance, power and eternity, 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
In the second Article, it is said, " The Godhead 
and Manhood were joined together in one Per- 
son^ never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, 
very God and very manP In the fourth Arti- 
cle, it is said: " Christ did truly rise again 
from death, and took again his body, with 
flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the 
perfection of marts nature, where\yith he as- 
cended into Heaven and there sitteth, until he 
return to judge all men at the last day." Is 
not this description of God irrational and 
contradictory ? He is Without body, parts or 
passions, and yet he is three persons, of one 
Substance, and is now in Heaven with a body, 
flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the 
perfection of man's nature. And though He 
is without a body, He is Three persons. And 
though the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 73 

Three persons, still the Father and Son " were 
joined together in One person, never to be 
divided." And this God, who is said to be 
without Passions, is constantly represented in 
their pulpits full of " Anger, Burning Wrath 
and Revenge " against His creatures. Is not 
this contradictory to the Scripture, which says 
that the True God is Infinite Love and In- 
finite Goodness ? Infinite Love cannot burn 
with the wicked passions of Wrath and Re- 
venge ! 

The Roman Catholics besides, deprive God 
of His attribute of Infinite Love, by the false 
doctrine that when infants in this world die 
without being baptized, He dooms them to an 
eternal " exclusion from Heaven," and casts 
them forever " into a dark place." 

Poor innocents, who never had even an 
evil thought ! that they should be condemned 
to eternal suffering and punishment for the 
omission of a deed which was not in their 
power to perform ; while the man whose soul 
is blackened with many a crime is to go un- 
punished, to enjoy eternal Bliss, because he 
has undergone the form of Baptism ! And 



74 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

the Calvanistic Presbyterians have preached 
that " in Hell there are Infants not a span 
long 1 1" Infants who had never even breath- 
ed the breath of this life ! How monstrous ! 
Must not a Being who makes such decrees 
be one of Infinite Cruelty and Injustice, rath- 
er than one of Infinite Benevolence ? Most 
truly has it been said, that the persons who 
entertain such creeds do not worship a God, 
but a Demon ! For more full and unanswer- 
able proofs of the false and unscriptural doc- 
trines of the Episcopal Church, the reader is 
referred to a work by the Rev. Robert Hind- 
marsh, entitled, " The Church of England, 
Weighed in the Balance of the. Sanctuary, 
and Found "Wanting ; Being an Examination 
of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the 
Three Creeds, and the Book of Common 
Prayer." * 

The infinite wisdom of God is also im- 
peached by the Old Church ; for it was grave- 
ly asserted in an Episcopal Church in our 
city, by a very popular Reverend Minister 

* Published by J. S. Hodson, No. 2, Clifford's Inn Pas- 
sage, Fleet Street, London. For sale by Otis Clapp, Boston. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 75 

(Rector of the Church), that " It is a mysteri- 
ous truth, but that God does sometimes repent" 
How can Infinite Wisdom do aught of which 
He may afterwards repent? Must He not 
have been lacking in wisdom when doing 
what He would afterwards wish undone ? 
This minister seems to have forgotten, that in 
Scripture it is said, " Every good gift and 
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh 
down from the Father of Lights, with whom 
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
(James i. 17.) " Jesus Christ the same, yes- 
terday, and to-day, and forever." (Heb. xiii. 
8.) It is true, that Scripture also says, that 
God repenteth ; but as He cannot be invari- 
able and also repent, it is evident that when 
two passages contradict each other in the let- 
ter, that they must not be equally understood 
according to the mere letter. It is generally 
from this fallacious mode of interpretation of 
Scripture that the Old Church have conceived 
so erroneous a character of God. 

The minister alluded to above, explains 
God's repentance to mean forgiveness : yet 
the dictionary explanation of Repentance is 



76 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

" sorrow for sin." Has God then sinned ? 
The literal meaning so implies. The New 
Church do not deem that the true meaning. 
The Episcopal minister says that we should 
daily pray for God's repentance ; for without 
which we cannot be saved from eternal pun- 
ishment. This teaching we consider alto- 
gether an error. The New Church do not 
believe in the doctrine of arbitrary punishment^ 
— that is, that God may be turned, like a falli- 
ble man, from His purpose by words of en- 
treaty! We believe that there is with Him 
" no variableness, neither shadow of turning." 
We do not believe in the arbitrary punishment 
similar to that of an absolute monarch, who is 
guided in his punishments merely by His will 
or whim. We do not believe that the punish- 
ment comes from God at all ; but that it comes 
from ourselves ; that it is the result of spirit- 
ual laws, which are according to order, and as 
invariable as natural laws. Thus : that as it 
is a natural law for fire to burn, if we put 
our hand in the fire, it is we who burn our 
hand and not God. In perfect agreement with 
which, it is a spiritual law, that if we lead 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 77 

an evil course of life, the consequence, as an 
inevitable result, will be suffering and unhap- 
piness, and that thus toe, not God, punish our- 
selves ; that God no more punishes us than He 
burns our hand when we put it in the fire. 

The New Church do not rob God of any of 
His infinite characteristics. They do not be- 
lieve anything to be the true interpretation of 
Scripture which makes Him contradict Himself. 
Therefore, in the passages where such diffi- 
culties seem to exist, we remember that the 
Scriptures were written in accommodation to 
man's apprehension; and that such passages 
as attribute to God the weaknesses, passions 
and failings incident to the imperfect nature 
of man, are merely apparent truths and not 
real truths, because they so seem to man. 
Thus, when man is angry, it seems to Mm that 
God is angry ; as, in like manner, to a drunken 
man, his fellow-men seem drunk. Thus in 
Scripture, the language of apparent truths is 
constantly used, — nor is this confined to 
Scripture. In common discourse we frequent- 
ly meet with the same mode of expression; 
for instance, what is commoner than to say, 



78 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

the sun rises ? Yet we all know that the sun 
does not rise, but only so appears to man; 
hence the expression, and hence the apparent 
truths of Scripture, for natural things are cor- 
respondent to spiritual things. 

As we truly believe that God is infinite 
love, we also believe that all infants and chil- 
dren, who have not reached the years of re- 
sponsibility when they die, are admitted by 
the benevolence of God into heaven ; that in 
the spiritual world it is the delightful office of 
those female angels best suited to the task, to 
guard over and instruct children, till, under 
their benign influence, the minds and charac- 
ters of the infants are matured into that state 
which is receptive of the enjoyment and wis- 
dom of heaven, into which they are then ad- 
mitted, being no longer in the ignorance of 
infancy, but in a state of wisdom with the 
appearance of the most lovely and eternal 
Youth. 

The Old Church description of God seems 
more like a floating vapor than anything defi- 
nite. The New Church remember that it is 
said, " God created man after His own image 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 79 

and likeness? Therefore we believe that His 
own form is that of a Glorious Divine Man. 
We believe that the Trinity is in one person, 
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ ; that his 
soul, or Divine Essence, is the Father ; that 
his human body, or Principle of Nature, is the 
Son ; and that the principle of Influence or 
Power, resulting from the union of soul and 
body, and thence proceeding, is the Holy 
Spirit. Thus, that three essentials consist in 
One Person, who is the only God. Nowhere 
can it be found in Scripture, that God is three 
persons, therefore the Old Church teach a 
false doctrine when they make it essential to 
salvation to believe that God is three persons. 
Their view of the Trinity is unscriptural and 
irrational. Ours is the true Scripture doctrine, 
and is perfectly analogous to the nature of 
man : the three essentials in him, are his soul, 
body and the principle of action resulting 
from the union of the first and second. 

We do not believe as the Roman Catholics, 
that the Virgin Mary is " the mother of God." 
But merely that she was the mother of the 
maternal human body which he assumed 



80 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

while on this earth; that afterwards, by the 
power of his soul, which was always God, 
he entirely put off all that was material and 
derived from the Virgin, and at the same time 
put on a Divine body, which still had the 
resemblance of the material body ; that when 
he ascended into heaven it was in this Divine 
body; that the "flesh and bones" spoken of 
were Divine and not material, therefore, not 
derived from the Virgin; hence, she was never 
the mother of God, but merely of the mate- 
rial body which he assumed while living 
among men on earth. 

The idolatrous worship of the Virgin Mary, 
was most emphatically demonstrated in the 
declaration and decree by Pope Pius IX., De- 
cember 8, 1854, in the Vatican, where Cardi- 
nals, Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman 
Catholic Church, assembled from all parts of 
the world in Rome, with the greatest display 
of pomp and ceremony, to settle a dogma 
of their church, which is wholly of human in- 
vention, and without the slightest Scriptural 
authority, viz.: deifying the Virgin Mary, de- 
claring her to be an exception from the inher- 

O 1 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 81 

ited propensity to evil, which belongs to the 
whole human family ; pronouncing her to be 
" That great mother of God, whom the Fath- 
ers of the Church call a perpetual miracle, 
innocent, pure and undefiled, all gracious and 
glorious, and whom the pious believer invokes 
with the prayers of the same church, as full 
of grace, queen of men and angels, the al- 
moner of all heavenly gifts, the hope and 
comfort of all amid the storms and agitations 
of life." This dogmatical decree of the Rom- 
ish Church is directly opposed to the whole 
plan of Christian salvation by the Saviour, 
who inherited the natural infirmities and ten- 
dencies to evil, without which he could not go 
through the same path of conflict and suffer- 
ing, and, by his human experience, set us an 
example to follow. 

The New Jerusalem Church entertain a 
widely different view of the body of Christ, 
as may be seen in the accompanying extract 
from the advertisement prefixed to the seventh 
volume of the Arcana Celestia : 

" A confusion having been observed to arise 
in the ideas of some readers respecting the 
6 



82 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Glorification of the Lord's Humanity, or Hu- 
man Principle, in consequence of confounding 
together the maternal humanity and the natu- 
ral humanity, by supposing them to mean 
one and the same thing, it is thought proper 
to remind the reader that the author, in all his 
writings considers the maternal humanity and 
the natural humanity as things totally dis- 
tinct. For the maternal humanity is regarded 
by him as what was taken from the mother ; 
and this, we are informed again and again, 
was successively put off until there was not 
the smallest particle thereof remaining in the 
Lord's humanity ; whereas the natural hu- 
manity was from the Father, consisting of 
all those natural affections and thoughts which 
properly constitute the natural mind, or man. 
And this humanity, we are further informed, 
was opened and formed successively after the 
birth of the maternal humanity, and in it, in 
like manner as man's natural principle, or 
mind, is opened and formed successively after 
and in the birth which is from the mother. 
In this natural humanity of the Lord was 
afterwards opened and formed successively 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 83 

the rational humanity, in like manner as 
man's rational principle is successively opened 
and formed in his natural principle. If the 
distinct natures of these various principles, 
the maternal, the natural and the rational hu- 
manity of the Lord be seen clearly, it may 
then also be seen with equal clearness, what 
that humanity was which he glorified, or 
made divine, and what that was which he 
put off. The humanity which he glorified or 
made divine, was the natural and rational hu- , 
manity, whilst the humanity which he put off 
was the maternal humanity, even as to corpo- 
reity or the corporeal principle. If it be asked 
what corporeity or corporeal principle then 
remained in the Lord, or what that body of 
flesh and bones ivas, in which he rose again 
and ascended into heaven, it may be an- 
swered, it was not at all from the mother but 
the Father; in like manner as man, it is 
reasonable to suppose, is ever changing his 
corporeal part, putting off one body and put- 
ting on another, and this successively accord- 
ing to the principle of good or evil, which has 
rule in his mind. The Divine Principle, then, 



84 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

which ever had rale in the Lord's mind, it 
is alike reasonable to suppose would be con- 
tinually putting off all that corporeity from 
the mother which was not in agreement with 
itself, and putting on another corporeity, 
which being in concord with itself, it could 
finally unite fully itself, or make Divine. 
Thus the Lord's humanity finally became 
Divine, even as to the ultimates of the Body, 
or corporeal part 

;c To conceive fully the precise nature of the 
Redeemer's Divine Body, transcends, perhaps, 
all finite apprehension. But if it cannot be 
perfectly conceived, it may be piously adored, 
as containing in it all the fulness of the God- 
head, and being the only medium of approach 
to, and of operation from, the hidden Deity" 

The doctrine of the Tri-personality of God 
is wholly of human invention, there being no 
foundation for it in Revelation : the term 
person never being applied to Christ in the 
whole New Testament except in two in- 
stances, as follows : " For if I forgave any- 
thing to whom I forgave it, for your sakes 
iorgave I it in the person of Christ." (2 Cor. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 85 

ii. 10.) God " hath in these last days spoken 
unto us by the Son, whom He hath appointed 
heir of all things, by whom also He made the 
worlds ; who being the brightness of His glory 
and the express image of His person, and up- 
holding all things by the word of His power.' 5 
&c. (Heb. i. 2, 3.) Here the word person is 
said, by some Biblical scholars, to be a mis- 
translation ; but even if correct, it does not 
teach the Tri-personality of God. This doctrine 
gradually crept into the Church in the follow- 
ing manner. In the last text mentioned, for 
person the Greek word hypostasis is used by 
Paul, which here properly denotes substance, or 
the ground of being. The Greek Fathers, 
aware that a distinct principle in the God- 
head must be denoted by each of the terms 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and wanting a 
word to express it, borrowed the one of hypos- 
tasis, and applied it indiscriminately to all 
three terms ; whereas Paul had used it in 
reference only to the one of Father. Still, 
though the Greek Fathers began to speak of 
three hypostases in the Divine nature, they had 
no idea of three persons as now understood. 



86 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

The Latin Fathers, who came after, wanting 
a word in their language, used that of persona, 
which most frequently denotes the character 
which any one bears or assumes, which is 
evinced by the term Dramatis personce, being 
still retained in technical language to denote 
the characters of a drama. But in English the 
term three persons conveys the idea of three 
distinct individuals ; hence the Tri-personality 
of God conveys a confused idea of three Gods, 
in spite of our effort to believe in only one. 

Equally unscriptural is the Unitarian doc- 
trine that Jesus Christ was other than the 
Only True God, as every Infinite attribute is 
said in Scripture to belong to him, and it is 
most distinctly affirmed that Jesus Christ is 
God, as may be seen in the following texts, 
viz : 

" Beware lest any man spoil you through 
philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition 
of men, after the rudiments of the world, and 
not after Christ ; for in Him dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians . 
ii. 8, 9.) " Who is a liar but he that denieth 
that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-Christ 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 87 

that denieth the Father and the Son. Who- 
soever denieth the Son, the same hath not the 
Father." (1 John ii. 22, 23.) "Jesus saith 
unto him, I am the way, and the truth and 
the life ; no man cometh unto the Father but 
by me. If ye had known me, ye should have 
known my Father also : and from henceforth 
ye know him, and have seen him. Philip 
saith unto him, i Lord, show us the Father and 
it sufficeth us.' Then in a manner that im- 
plies reproof for their dullness of apprehension, 
Jesus saith unto him ' Have I been so long 
time with you, and yet hast thou not known 
me, Philip ? he that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father ; and how sayest thou then, show 
us the Father ? Believest thou not that I am 
in the Father, and the Father in me ? ' " (John 
xiv. 6 - 10.) " Let this mind be in you which 
was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the 
form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
equal with God; but made himself of no 
reputation, and took upon him the form of a 
servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; 
and being found in fashion as a man, he 
humbled himself and became obedient unto 



88 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

death, even the death of the cross." (Philip- 
pians ii. 5-8.) The Son of God "Who is 
the image of the invisible God, the first-born 
of every creature : for by him were all things 
made that are in heaven, and that are in earth, 
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, 
or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all 
tilings ivere created by him and for him ; and 
he is before all things, and by him all things 
consist." (Colossians i. 15-17.) "In the be- 
ginning was the Word, and the Word was 
with God, and the Word tuas God. For the 
same was in the beginning with God. All 
things were made by him : and without him 
was not anything made that was made. He 
was in the world, and the world was made by 
him, and the world knew him not. And the 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, 
(and we beheld his glory, as the glory of the 
only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and 
truth." (John i. 1, 3, 10, 14.) " Yet I am the 
Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and 
thou shalt know no God but me : for there is. 
no Saviour besides me." (Hosea xiii. 4.) " For 
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 89 

given, and the government shall be upon his 
shoulder ; and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." 
(Isaiah ix. 6.) " I am the Lord, that is my 
name; and my glory will I not give to 
another." (Is. xlii. 8.) " For I am the Lord thy 
God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. 
Before me there was no God formed, neither 
shall there be after me. I, even I, am the 
Lord ; and besides me there is no Saviour." 
(Is. xliii. 3, 10, 11.) " Verily thou art a God 
that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the 
Saviour. And there is no God else besides 
me, a just God and a Saviour: there is none 
besides me. Look unto me and be ye saved, 
all the ends of the earth ; for I am God, and there 
is none else." (Is. xlv. 15, 21, 22.) Thus saith 
the Lord, thy Redeemer ', the Holy One of 
Israel ; I am the Lord thy God which teachest 
thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way 
that thou shouldst go." (Is.xlviii. 17.) "Doubt- 
less thou art our Father, though Abraham 
be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us 
not ; thou, Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer : 
thy name is from everlasting." (Is. lxiii. 16.) 



90 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Vicarious Atonement — The New Church Doctrine of the 
Atonement according to Scripture — Why the Vicarious 
Atonement is Unscriptural — Explanation of Mediator — 
Of Sacrifice for Sin — Genuine Sacrifice — Correspondence 
of the Crucifixion — Of the Lord's Supper — Different 
Views of the Old and New Church in the Ordinance — The 
Falsehood Implied by Communicants not "Receiving the 
Creed of the Church in which they Commune — Explana- 
tion of the Lord's Prayer in the Old Church — And in the 
New — Internal and External Man. 

The next important false doctrine is the 
Vicarious Atonement. The Old Church be- 
lieve that mankind had become so wicked 
that Divine justice required the damnation of 
the whole race ; but His Divine benevolence 
coming in to prevent this, He devised a 
scheme which might satisfy His Justice, and, 
at the same time, save mankind. The scheme 
was to send His Son into the world, to suffer 
instead of man, that thus the innocent bearing 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 91 

the punishment due to the guilty, mankind 
might be saved ; as God's justice would then 
be satisfied. Thence, it was only needed of 
men to receive Christ as their Saviour by prin- 
cipally believing' in this doctrine of imputed 
justification, and, as an evidence that they 
believed this, they must conform to the prin- 
ciples taught by their Saviour. But the worst 
part of the doctrine is, that if they should con- 
form to the Christian principles, and at the same 
time did not believe that they were released 
from punishment because Christ suffered in 
their stead) in that case they could not be saved. 
The New Church aver that the doctrine of 
vicarious atonement is nowhere taught in 
Scripture ; that the word atonement occurs 
but once in the New Testament (Romans v, 
11) ; that in all other cases where the same 
Greek word is used, it is translated Recon- 
ciliation. The English word is a compound of 
at and one, or to reconcile.* Thus a covenant 

* That this was the ancient meaning of the word,, may be 
seen in Shakespeare's Richard II., Act. L, Scene I., and also 
in the Bible, viz : Acts vii. 26 ; 1 Mace. xiii. 50 ; 2 Masc, L 
5, 7, 33 ; Lev. i. 4 ; Exod. xxxii. 30, 



92 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

while both parties keep it, makes them at one, 
or gives them at-one-ment. (See Calmet and 
many others.) The New Church believe the 
true doctrine of the Atonement to be, viz: 
that mankind had so far departed from true 
doctrine and true righteousness, that they had 
wholly alienated themselves from God, the 
consequence of which was that hell so far 
increased over heaven, that the influence of 
hell over the world so overpowered the influ- 
ence of heaven that, had there not come a 
new dispensation, the whole race of mankind 
must have been lost; hence the necessity of 
Christ's coming into the world to save it, by 
establishing a New Church, the First Christian 
Church which superseded the Jewish. This 
he succeeded in enabling man to receive by 
effecting a General Judgment in the spiritual 
world, and thus opening a way of reunion be- 
tween man and God,* which we call " subduing 
the Hells," and in Scripture it is expressed thus, 
" Now shall the Prince of this world be cast 
out" (John xiL 31.) He subdued the Hells, 
or cast out the prince of this world, by resist- 

*See the quotation on page 69 from Swedenborg's "Last 
Judgment." 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 93 

ing his spiritual temptations ; (of course, these 
temptations assaulted only his human princi- 
ple, as the Godhead could not be tempted.) 

The vicarious atonement must be unscrip- 
tural, as it conflicts with the unity of God : it 
being inseparable from the idea of an inferior 
God yielding to the demands of a superior, 
and receiving punishment unjustly from an 
angry and more powerful being. The same 
duality is involved in the understanding of 
Christ being an everlasting mediator for man- 
kind by entreaty. To believe that Christ was 
a sacrifice for sin to appease God's burning 
wrath, is to attribute to Infinite Goodness the 
sin of anger, and the petty feeling of ven- 
geance, in which a human master indulges 
when he must first vent his spleen on some 
one or other before he can be benevolent to 
his slaves. To say that there was no injus- 
tice in inflicting punishment on Christ, though 
innocent, because he was willing to suffer 
unjustly, savors more of the quibble of a 
lawyer making out a bad cause than of the 
truthfulness of wisdom and genuine goodness. 
This view of the Atonement, the New Church 



94 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

affirm to be a total misunderstanding of Scrip- 
ture, of which any unprejudiced person may- 
be convinced by a careful perusal of the Rev. 
S. Noble's "Appeal." It is there fully explained 
what we here but briefly state, viz : That the 
prevalent theology has attributed a meaning 
to the word Atonement, which was wholly 
unknown at the time of the translation of the 
Scriptures : then it was only understood to 
mean Reconciliation. Extraordinary enough 
it is that the word Atonement, of which the 
Old Church make so much, occurs but once in 
the New Testament, the same Greek word 
having been in every other place translated 
Reconciliation. And still more extraordinary 
is the perversion of that one instance by the 
Old Church. They suppose that the Lord 
made an atonement to the Father; thus that 
the atonement was received by the Father, 
when yet it is said in the only text of the 
New Testament, where the word occurs, that 
it is we who have received the Atonement. 
6i For if, when we were enemies, we were 
reconciled to God by the death of his Son, 
much more, being reconciled, we shall be 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 95 

saved by his life. And not only so, but we 
also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whom we have now received the 
atonement." (Rom. v. 10, 11.) Which text, 
rationally, can only mean that Jesus Christ is 
the medium by which we are in a state of 
Reconciliation with God. How unscriptural, 
then, to make out from this that the Atone- 
ment means that God the Father inflicted the 
punishment due to us, upon God the Son ! 
The general reader, impressed with the old 
doctrine of the atonement, will be apt to doubt 
that the above passage is the only one in 
which the word is mentioned, when the vica- 
rious atonement has been so prevalent in the 
Church for ages; yet, if he know the value of 
truth, and has good sense enough to dread 
being the dupe of false teaching, and has 
independence enough to form an opinion of 
his own, he may satisfy himself of the truth 
of this statement by searching the Scriptures, 
as they are open to all, and Cruden's Con- 
cordance may expedite his search. 

Let it not be understood from what we 
have said, that the New Church deny that 



96 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

the Scriptures teach that Christ is an ever- 
lasting Mediator and a sacrifice for sin. We 
fully believe this to be Scriptural doctrine, but 
we do not understand these words as the Old 
Church do. We are convinced that their 
interpretation is wholly contradictory to the 
character of God, and to a right reading of 
Scripture. 

Mediator is pure Latin ; the Greek word 
from which it is translated answers exactly to 
it. To those only acquainted with English, it 
does not convey its original meaning, as fol- 
lows : Mediator is formed from the word me- 
dium, which signifies the middle between two 
extremes, A Mediator, therefore, is one who 
stands in the middle — who goes between 
two opposite parties and acts as a medium by 
which they are brought into communication, 
and thus into agreement. It was the one 
Jehovah who assumed Humanity in the per- 
son of Jesus Christ ; it is the Humanity thus 
assumed which is properly called in Scripture 
the Son of God. It was not the essential 
Divine Essence which w T as born of the Virgin, 
but only the Human Nature. This last is 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 97 

what was made a sacrifice to God, that is, 
devoted, consecrated, and halloived to God ; 
it is this glorified Humanity which is the 
medium of communication between God and 
man. The Glorified Humanity being a more 
adequate organ for its operations upon human 
minds in their present state, than could be the 
case by the pure Divine Essence unclothed 
and unmodified ; just as the body of man is 
the full and adequate organ for the operations 
of his soul, adapting them so as to produce 
effects upon the objects of this natural world, in 
a manner which it would be impossible for his 
soul alone to accomplish unclothed by the body. 
Thus the Son, the Humanity, or the man 
Jesus Christ is the Medium of conveying to 
mankind the blessings of the gospel dispensa- 
tion. This is the Scripture doctrine of an 
everlasting Mediator. 

That the Mediator is one being ever sup- 
plicating another being for the salvation of 
man cannot be proved to be a doctrine of 
Scripture ; but it is of the traditions of men. 
This latter doctrine must involve the idea of 
the Father and Son being as completely two 
7 



98 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Gods as any two human beings are two men, 
and that they differ as much from each other 
as a subject from an absolute sovereign: for 
how can he who supplicates God to lay aside 
His wrath, be the same God who only lays 
aside His wrath in compliance with such 
entreaty and supplication ? 

The view in the Old Church of Christ being 
a sacrifice for sin by his sufferings and death 
on the cross, and thus that a transfer of pun- 
ishment was inflicted upon him in the stead 
of mankind who were the real offenders ; the 
Rev. S. Noble * shows clearly that this doc- 
trine is drawn from the mistaken Jewish 
notions of sacrifices, and belongs to those 
traditions by which the law of God is made 
of none effect. None of the Jewish modes of 
atonement were really representative of the 
vicarious atonement ; not even in the case of 
the scape-goat f over which Aaron was re- 
quired to confess the sins and iniquities of the 
people, and thus putting them upon the goat's 
head ; for, in this instance, as the goat was 
representatively loaded with sins, it was con- 

* Noble's " Appeal." f Lev. xvi. 21. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 99 

sidered as unclean, and instead of being sacri- 
ficed was sent away into the wilderness : by 
which was really signified that the people 
must send their evils back to hell whence they 
had come, and thus separate themselves from 
their sins. Neither were the other six modes 
of atonement of the Mosaic law meant to 
represent the punishment of sin, but, on the 
contrary, their sacrifices represented the hal- 
lowing of every affection and principle of the 
mind, and thus of the whole man, to the 
Lord. 

Hence the New Church understand the true 
meaning of Christ being a sacrifice for sin, not 
to consist in his suffering the punishment due 
to sin, but in his hallowing every principle of 
his Human Nature to the Godhead, till at 
length his Human Nature became a living 
sacrifice, or thing- fully consecrated, sanctified 
and hallowed by perfect union with his Divinity. 
That this was necessary for man's salvation 
Christ declares when he says : " For their 
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may 
be sanctified through me." (John xvii. 19.) 
Which means, that he purified his Humanity 



100 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

from the infirmities inherited from the mother, 
and thus made it Divine ; was " made perfect 
through suffering." The sufferings were the 
temptations and conflicts by which he put off 
the imperfections he had inherited from the 
Virgin, the last of which he put off by the suf- 
fering of the cross ; thus all the material nature 
within him was extinguished, everything un- 
congenial to his Divine life, or Divine soul, 
was extinct ; hence, when he raised his body 
from the tomb, it was no longer finite, no 
longer liable to any of the accidents of the 
mere creature, but it was wholly Divine, the 
Divine Essence in the Human form. 

The various sacrifices of the Mosaic law 
represented the various affections and prin- 
ciples of the human mind and heart ; and we 
are all required to sacrifice them unto the 
Lord, to which Paul exhorts us when he says : 
" I beseech you, brethren, that ye present your 
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto 
God, which is your reasonable service." (Rom. 
xii. 1.) This living sacrifice man is when he 
consecrates all his affections, thoughts, desires 
and actions to the service of God and of man- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 101 

kind ; when he overcomes the inherited selfish 
principle of his life, and adopts instead the 
Celestial principle of genuine Love, which is 
true benevolence, kindness, gentleness and 
consideration for the comfort, enjoyment, taste 
and happiness of all around. This is the 
denial or sacrifice of self which the Scriptures 
so repeatedly enjoin, without which the sacri- 
fice of Christ is in vain. He effected a recon- 
ciliation between human nature generally and 
God, and thus made mankind capable of sal- 
vation, but to each individual his salvation 
will depend on his use of the means proffered. 
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was not by 
order of God, but was the natural consequence 
of the wickedness of the Jews ; at the same 
time, it was representative of their treatment 
of the "Word : his Body corresponding to 
saving Love, and his Blood to saving Truth. 
They killed his Body, whereby was repre- 
sented that by their merely external religion 
they had extinguished the Love taught in the 
Word. They shed his Blood, whereby was 
represented the violence they had done to the 
Truth of Scripture in their perversion of its 



102 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

doctrines ; for Truth is as essential to the life 
of genuine religion, as blood is essential to the 
life of the natural body; the non-circulation 
of the blood is death, so, also, religion without 
truth is dead. Between all natural and spirit- 
ual things there is always a correspondence. 
The health of the body is a fitting correspond- 
ent to the health of the spirit. Genuine re- 
ligion being spiritual health, true doctrines are 
essential to its life, hence, if they are dispersed 
or scattered, the religion is not healthy. So, 
also, if the human blood be needlessly shed 
the body will not be healthy. 

In the New Church may be plainly seen 
the practical use of the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper, which is representative of the 
death of Jesus, and of which it is as much 
our duty to partake, as it is our duty to be 
baptized ; for it was the Lord who gave the 
ordinance of the holy supper as well as that 
of baptism, for all his disciples, and all who 
are Christians are his disciples, in whatever 
age they may live. Therefore we have no 
more right to refuse obedience to this com- 
mand than to any other of our Lord's ; and so 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 103 

long as we are guilty of this wilful disobedi- 
ence, we are not Christians indeed; though 
the mere outward form will not make us 
so either. Yet the former is necessary as 
a means of getting the true Christian spirit. 
As prayer, attendance at divine worship, and 
religious reading, are means for giving us holy 
thoughts and feelings, teaching us to lead a 
holy life, so are the sacraments of baptism 
and the holy supper means to the same end. 
In temporal concerns, all business transactions 
are accomplished by certain forms, and with- 
out those forms, the transactions are not valid : 
they become then essential. It is the same in 
spiritual concerns ; each form corresponds to 
its spiritual meaning, and is, therefore, neces- 
sary as a pledge or sign of the spiritual thing 
meant by it. By baptism is typified spiritual 
washing or regeneration. By the holy supper 
is typified spiritual nourishment derived from 
the Lord which conjoins us to him. Bread is 
the sustenance of our natural body, and wine 
strengthening to it; so the holy Love and sacred 
Truth are sustaining and strengthening to our 
spirits. Hence, when we partake of the em- 



104 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

blems, we should think of and pray to receive 
of God's love or genuine Goodness, and of his 
holy Truthfulness, which is genuine Wisdom. 
Thus the more we receive into our characters 
of the Divine Love and Divine Truth, the 
more we shall truly be Christians, and the 
more certain of becoming angels. 

With what different views is this same 
ordinance kept in the Old Church! With 
them it is to commemorate a false doctrine ! 
that of the vicarious atonement, which cannot 
be found in Scripture. In their service they 
particularly dwell upon the death and suffer- 
ings of Jesus as the punishment due to us for 
our sins transferred upon him to appease an 
angry God burning with wrath. As this is 
the received opinion in the Old Church, each 
communicant is, of course, supposed to believe 
this doctrine as taught in the church of which 
he has become a member; if, then, he do not 
believe in the creed of the church where he is 
a member, is he not virtually a false witness ? 
He is understood by all who do receive the 
creed, to do so like themselves ; must he not 
then be acting a deceitful part to partake of 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 105 

the signs with them, while inwardly he rejects 
their views of the subject? We cannot but 
think such a communicant any less a false 
witness than a man who, in a court of justice, 
takes an oath upon the Bible, while inwardly 
he deems the Bible no more sacred than any 
other book. It strikes us that a conscientious 
communicant will partake of the emblems 
where the views of the subject are most in 
agreement with his own. And if he be ac- 
tuated by any worldly consideration in his 
selection of membership ; if he be ashamed 
to join the Church whose creed is most in 
agreement with his own, because it is unpop- 
ular or unfashionable, let him remember that 
Christ said, " For whosoever shall be ashamed 
of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son 
of man be ashamed, when he shall come in 
his own glory and in his Father's, and of 
the angels." (Luke ix. 26.) Is it not to be 
feared that he who would be ashamed to 
join an unpopular church, whose members 
are mostly of humble station, and having 
but few in the higher walks of life, — is it 
not to be feared that such a person would 



106 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEExV 

have been ashamed of following the reputed 
"Carpenter's Son" (Matt. xiii. 55), and of 
joining with fishermen, a publican and a 
tent-maker ? 

As the Lord's Prayer is received in all 
Christian Churches, it may not be inappro- 
priate to give the reader an opportunity of 
judging, if the explanation of this great 
prayer be not more comprehensive and more 
full of meaning, as presented by the New 
Church, than as understood by the Old Church. 

The explanation of the latter is extracted 
from the Episcopal Catechism, as follows : 

" Quest "What desirest thou of God in this 
prayer ? 

" Arts. I desire my Lord God, our heavenly 
Father, who is the giver of all goodness, to 
send His grace unto me and to all people, that 
we may worship Him, serve Him, and obey 
Him, as we ought to do. And I pray unto 
God that He will send us all things that are 
needful both for our souls and bodies; and 
that He will be merciful unto us, and forgive 
us our sins ; and that it will please Him to 
save and defend us in all dangers both of soul 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 107 

and body ; and that He will keep us from all 
sin and wickedness, and from our spiritual 
enemy, and from everlasting death. And this 
I trust He will do of His mercy and goodness, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ ; and therefore 
I say, Amen, — So be it." 

The following is a brief analysis of the ex- 
planation in the New Jerusalem Church, by 
the Rev. H. "Worcester : 

" Our Father who art in heaven." This is 
an acknowledgment of the dependence and 
allegiance of children to a parent. 

" Hallowed be thy name." By the " name," 
Mr. Worcester plainly proves that the whole 
character and deeds of a being are meant* 
Therefore, this is a confession of belief in 
the holiness of his character, and adoration 
of his attributes as made known by his works 
and written word. Perfect holiness is per- 
fect love. His name then is hallowed by 
us, or kept holy, when we love and obey 
him. 

M Thy kingdom come." By kingdom is 
meant spiritual life. We pray that our own 
life, which is prone to evil, and is called the 



108 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

kingdom of Self, may be given up or denied 
for a holy life, which is a submission to the 
laws of the kingdom of heaven. This is a 
state of self-denial, on principle, in acts of 
obedience by our spiritual external man* 
And by it is understood the third day, or state 
of regeneration. Through it, is reached the 
state understood by the next petition. 

" Thy will be done, as in heaven, so also upon 
the earth." Here we pray for a higher degree 
of regeneration; a sublimity of our internal 
man, which is understood by heaven, together 
with our external man, which is understood 
by earth. This state is a submitting of our 
will to the will of God, and preferring His to 
our own ; a doing right not merely on princi- 
ple and through self-denial, but from a love of 
it ; that His will be done by us in our exter- 
nal acts, in perfect union with our internal 
thoughts and affections ; which would be 
having His will done by men on earth as it is 
done by the angels in heaven. 

" Give us this day our daily bread." To 
supply us continually with that spiritual nonr- 

* The better to understand this allusion read pages 1 10- 112. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 109 

ishment which our spiritual state requires ; 
and that all his gifts may be adapted to our 
state. 

u Forgive us our debts as we forgive our 
debtors." "We pray for a forgiving spirit, 
having which, it will appear to us that God 
forgives us in consequence, though the real 
truth is, that as we give up the sin of unforgive- 
ness (by a spiritual law of order), the penalty • 
or evil effect of that sin is removed, and thence 
we feel that we are forgiven. 

" Lead us not into temptation." This, as 
above, is again the language of apparent 
truths. When we feel tempted to do wrong, 
it appears to us that God tempts us. But 
that is not so ; nothing good can tempt to evil. 
Were there no evil within us, let the circum- 
stances be what they may, we should feel no 
temptation to evil ; it is, then, the evil within 
us which tempts us, and not God. And here 
we pray that He will strengthen us or arm us 
against the power of that temptation by the 
most effectual way, as expressed in the next 
sentence. 

" But deliver us from evil." That is, de« 



110 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

stroy the evil within us which causes us to 
feel temptation. 

" For thine is the kingdom, and the power, 
and the glory, forever." An humble acknow- 
ledgment of our own weakness : and that our 
obedience to the laws of His kingdom, and 
our power to overcome evil, are not from our 
own intrinsic goodness and strength, but from 
God's, — and consequently, all the glory or 
merit is also His ; that in all times and all 
states the work of our regeneration is to be 
ascribed to him alone. 

" Amen." In truth, truly and in sincerity. 

In reference to the external and internal 
man, it must be borne in mind that in our 
spirits there is an external and an internal 
principle, called external man and internal 
man. This may easily be realized r& we 
reflect upon the evidence of two principles 
within us, when we are in the act of ponder- 
ing, meditating and reasoning with ourselves. 
The thoughts, questions and arguments aris- 
ing in our own mind are, on some of these 
occasions, as distinct as if we were two indi- 
viduals reasoning together. At times we act 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. Ill 

impulsively without consulting our deeper 
thoughts and feelings. This is the conspicuous 
evidence of the external man. And if the act 
in this case would have been different upon 
deliberate reflection, then our internal and 
external are not in union. But if all our out- 
ward actions and words are in perfect con- 
formity with our internal thoughts, affections 
and desires, then our internal and external 
man are united. And if those thoughts and 
affections are heavenly, we are in the celestial 
marriage, which is regeneration and the hap- 
piness of heaven. But if those thoughts and 
affections are evil, selfish or false, we are in the 
infernal marriage, and linked spiritually with 
hell. Before the union has taken place, the 
most important point is, whether our internal 
man is heavenly or hellish ; for, at death, 
according to the state of our internal man will 
depend our future weal or woe. The good, 
the kindness, the benevolence and the holiness 
of the outward acts or external man alone will 
not lead to heaven ; for that is hypocrisy, 
Though it is the genuine goodness of the 
thoughts and the will of the internal man 



112 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

which leads to heaven, still, it is not sufficient 
to have good thoughts and good desires ; they 
must result in good acts ; and the more we 
seek to make our acts and words conform 
to internal goodness, the more perfect will 
be our happiness in Heaven, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 113 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Old Church and New Church Concerning Faith, Charity 
and Salvation — Of the First Chapter of Genesis — Old 
Church Inconsistency with regard to Swedenborg — Internal 
Sense of the Word — Old Church and New Church Views of 
the Origin of Evil — Of Children, Remains, Good and Evil 
Spirits — Regeneration — "World of Spirits, Heaven, Hell 

— Of Conversion and Regeneration, the Difference, Death 
Bed Repentance — Old Church Views of Heaven and Hell 

— New Church Views of the Life after Death, of the Hap- 
piness of Heaven, the Angels, their Employments, Mar- 
riages — Old Church Objection — New Church Answer — 
Two Quotations from Rev. S. Noble on the Subject of 
Spiritual Marriage. 

The Old Church in general, with some few 
exceptions, give to Faith the supremacy over 
Love or Charity. The New Church give to 
Love the supremacy over Faith, as does also 
the Apostle Paul, thus : " And though I have 
all Faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
and have not charity, I am nothing. And 
8 



114 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

now abideth, faith, hope, charity, these three ; 
but the greatest of these is charity." (1 Cor. 
xiii. 2, 13.) 

Many of the Christian sects of the Old 
Church believe that there is no salvation 
except for those who bear the name of 
Christian. In the eighteenth article of the 
Episcopal Prayer Book, this is expressed. 
Some go still further, and believe that only 
those who belong to their own peculiar sect 
can be saved. That is the creed of the Roman 
Catholics and also of some of the sects of 
the Presbyterians and Baptists. 

The New Church believe that not only 
Christians of all denominations, but such of 
all other religions beside, may be saved, who 
live a good life, and act up to the light they 
have. Though we believe that those who are 
in genuine truth have the best means of at- 
taining states of genuine love, and the happi- 
ness thence resulting. We do not rest satisfied 
with the assurance of merely being saved from 
Hell, but we feel the importance of spiritual 
instruction, as we are perfectly certain that 
the more genuine Truth there is in our Faith 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 115 

and the more genuine spiritual love in our 
Charity, and the more firmly this genuine 
Faith and genuine Love are linked together 
in our spirit, and the more fully demonstrated 
in our life, the more exquisite will be our 
happiness of our Heaven ; as there are degrees 
of goodness on earth, so there are also degrees 
of happiness in Heaven; therefore, in just 
proportion as our Faith and Charity are of 
the Natural, Spiritual or Celestial Heaven, 
we shall enjoy the happiness of the Natural, 
Spiritual or Celestial Heaven after our mate- 
rial body dies. 

The Old Church generally, though there are 
some exceptions, believe that the First Chap- 
ter of Genesis is a literal history of the crea- 
tion of our Natural Universe. 

The New Church do not believe it to be an 
account of the Natural Creation. "We have 
good authority (as may be seen in Sweden- 
borg's first volume of the " Arcana Celestia ") 
for believing that the literal history does not 
commence till the call of Abraham, at the 12th 
chapter of Genesis; the eleven chapters pre- 
vious to which being, in figurative language, 



116 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

representative of Spiritual things ; which style 
of writing was in very common use among 
the ancients. An attentive reader of the 1st 
chapter of Genesis, free from all preconceived 
opinion of its meaning, will clearly see that it 
cannot refer to the natural creation : for the 
light is said to have been created on the first 
day and divided from the darkness , and formed 
a day and night, whereas, the sun, moon and 
stars were not made until the fourth day, 
which in verses 14, 16, 18, it is said were placed 
in the firmament, among other purposes, to 
divide the day from the night The vegetable 
kingdom was created on the third day, before 
the sun, whose influence we know is now 
essential to the creation and growth of vege- 
tables. Has God, then, altered the order of 
His laws of nature ? And if Adam means 
one particular individual, how is it that where 
man is first mentioned, it is written (verse 26), 
" And God said let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness, and let them have 
dominion over the fish of the sea," &c. ; and 
in the next verse (27), " So God created 
man in his own image, in the image of God 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 117 

created He him ; male and female created He 
them." And in the 5th chapter, 2d verse, it is 
written, " Male and Female created He them, 
and blessed them, and called THEIR name 
ADAM." Adam, in Hebrew, is the generic 
term for man, the race, and not a single indi- 
vidual. Here it is declared that both Male 
and Female were called Adam ; and, though 
both were created (Gen. i. 27) on the sixth 
day, there is no mention of the woman Eve 
till near the close of the second chapter, which 
appears to be some time after the Lord had 
rested on the seventh day. And if the Garden 
of Eden, in which the first pair were placed? 
means literally a spot of ground of this natural 
arth, what is the meaning of its being said 
concerning the King of Tyrus (Ezekiel 
xxviii. 13), " Thou hast been in Eden, the 
Garden of God," when the King of Tyrus was 
not born till more than three thousand years 
after the expulsion of Adam from the Garden, 
which was believed never to have been en- 
tered into afterwards, but went to destruction. 
Besides, is it not implied that something spirit- 
ual is meant by this garden, as the trees therein 



118 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

have spiritual names, viz : The Tree of Life, 
and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and 
Evil " ? 

Clemens, of Alexandria, Origen, De la 
Bigne, and others of the earliest days of 
Christianity, were of opinion that the first part 
of Genesis was " pure allegories, metaphors, 
enigmas and symbols." And, indeed, as that 
was the general opinion in primitive days, 
those were considered heretics who interpreted 
this part of Scripture according to the letter. 

There is also proof of a different kind show- 
ing that the earth must be much older than 
the Mosaic account would make out, as in a 
report of the doings of the Academy of Sci- 
ences of Oct. 1840 or '41, it is stated that Mr. 
Thilorier submitted to the Academy proofs 
and calculations which show that the great 
pyramid of Egypt was erected four thousand 
five hundred years before the Christian era, 
which is just five hundred years previous to 
the creation according to the Mosaic account ; 
hence, that must not be understood as literally 
a history of the natural creation ; as many 
late discoveries in Geology have served to 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 119 

corroborate the belief that it is not. Mr. 
Thilorier gives information that an Arabian 
author states that, during the reign of the 
Calif Almamoun there was found engraven 
upon the great pyramid an inscription w T hich 
showed at what time it was erected, viz : 
when Lyra was found under the sign of 
Cancer, which, according to astronomical cal- 
culations, determines the erection to be as far 
back as four thousand five hundred years 
before the Christian era. And the same date 
is proved by a hieroglyphic legend recently 
discovered in one of the chambers of the 
pyramid, which Mr. Thilorier has deciphered. 
The Old Church will not believe the reve- 
lations of Swedenborg, because, in spite of 
the incontestable testimony to the fact, they 
think the opening of his spiritual sight and 
intercourse with the spiritual world impossible, 
though there is abundant evidence of prece- 
dents of the same nature. And when you show 
them that, to be consistent, they must then re- 
ject the Bible ; as it is there related what was 
seen in the spiritual world by Elijah, Elisha, 
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, John, Paul, Peter 



120 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

and the women at the Lord's sepulchre. To this 
they answer, " but those were the days of mira- 
cles, and they are passed, never to return." And 
when you ask them where they find it decreed 
that such things shall never return, they can- 
not answer you ; for it is nowhere declared in 
the Sacred Record, that such events shall 
never occur again. They seem to imagine 
that to receive the revelations of Swedenborg 
they must reject those of the Prophets, 
which is altogether an error, for Swedenborg 
was sent to explain those very Prophets, at the 
time Infinite Wisdom foresaw that mankind 
was best prepared to receive what they could 
not comprehend before. Every reader of the 
Scriptures perceives that there is much in thern 
that cannot be understood without further 
light. The Revelation of St. John, for in- 
stance, is a sealed book : can it be supposed 
that the seal is never to be broken? — that 
God gave the book for our benefit, and yet 
that it is never to be comprehended ? Im- 
possible. As it is nowhere decreed by God 
that the darkness of the early ages is to remain 
forever, we are perfectly justifiable in hailing 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 121 

with delight, and with thankful hearts receiv- 
ing the glorious light of the New Jerusalem 
descending from Heaven in the explanation of 
the internal sense of the Word, which is the 
Second Coming of the Lord. 

The Old Church believe that the origin of 
evil was from a being first created an angel 
by God; which angel, falling from his high 
estate, became the worst devil, the ringleader 
of devils, and that he then tempted man to 
sin by the disobedience of eating the apple in 
the gar.den of Eden. 

The New Church affirm that this doctrine 
cannot be fairly and rationally proved from 
Scripture, and that angels were never created 
such, but that they were all originally men 
and women on this and other earths, (which 
we believe we behold in the starry heavens), 
The angel said unto John, " I am thy fellow- 
servant, and of thy brethren the prophets." 
(Rev. xxii. 9.) We believe that the origin of 
sin was from the abuse of the principle of 
liberty with which God gifted man ; that 
man was first created good, with a spiritual 
principle, and a natural principle ; th t the 



122 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



first was heavenly, the other earthly. " I find 
then a law, that, when I would do good, evil 
is present with me. For I delight in the law 
of God after the inivard man. But I see 
another law in my members warring against 
the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
captivity to the law of sin which is in my 
members? (Rom. vii. 21, 22, 23.) That the 
spiritual w r as intended to rule over the natu- 
ral ; but liberty, a free agency, being allowed 
to man, in course of time man preferred to 
have the natural rule over the spiritual. This 
was the first interruption of the order God 
had created ; hence the origin of evil, which 
gradually increased by inheritance. Thus, 
though liberty or free agency was a good gift 
from God, — for, had we it not, we should not 
be men^ but mere automatons, — man's misus- 
ing this liberty, w r as the origin of evil ; w T hich 
fearfully increased with each succeeding gene- 
ration. 

Though we thus inherit the evils of our 
parents, w T e do not (like some of the Old 
Church) believe that we are punished for 
these, nor that they are sins in us until we 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 123 

arrive at an age of responsibility, and under- 
standing! y commit sins. Then, if we indulge 
in our inherited evils, we appropriate them to 
ourselves, and they become our sins, for which 
we are responsible. But, in childhood, our 
parents are responsible for them, for they are 
their sins, and they by them make our regene- 
ration more difficult when we arrive at mature 
age. We believe that all infants have attend- 
ant angels who guard them against dangers, 
and suggest good thoughts and feelings as their 
minds are developed ; thus, the opportunity is 
given to all mankind for the groundwork of 
regeneration, which, at the age of maturity, it 
becomes their duty to improve. The instruc- 
tions of pious parents, teachers and associates 
are guarded by the angels in the minds' of 
children. These instructions we call " re- 
mains," and they come into play as the char- 
acter matures ; and according as we improve 
these, or neglect them, we work out our own 
salvation or condemnation. We believe that 
all men and women are subject to the domin- 
ion of good and evil spirits, and it depends 
upon ourselves to decide which shall have the 



124 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

mastery. And as we heed the good, the evil 
forsake us, and vice versa. The more w^e act 
as our good spirits dictate, the greater number 
of good spirits attend us, support us, direct 
us in the right path, and drive off the influ- 
ence of the evil ones. These latter, gradually 
finding their efforts to lead us astray in vain, 
forsake us entirely, because they have lost 
their power over us. We are then left to the 
protection and direction of our good spirits 
who are sent to us by the benevolence of God. 
Thus, it is by self-denial and resistance of the 
evil within us (which is excited by evil spirits) 
that sin is taken from us, and then we no 
longer feel any temptation to do evil ; because 
to feel tempted to evil, we must have evil 
within us. Could we always remember and 
deeply and constantly feel that our first care 
is to be ever on our guard against our spiritual 
enemies, and ever to look upon all our evil 
thoughts and inclinations as something sepa- 
rate from us — as enemies who are luring us 
to our ruin, and whom we must fight against 
and put to flight, (by forcing' ourselves to do 
jight,) we should speedily attain to the state 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 125 

of perfect Freedom, which is perfect Regene- 
ration, and is represented by the Seventh or 
Sabbath day in Genesis ; being a state of 
perfect rest from spiritual warfare. (See Swe- 
denborg's (vol. 1) " Arcana Celestia.") Very 
few at the present day attain this state in this 
world; but such as do, we believe, at their 
death, go immediately to Heaven, and enjoy 
the Highest state of Heavenly happiness. 
We also believe that, as most characters are 
a mixture of good and evil, that such, at death, 
go to the world of spirits, where their state is 
perfected by a separation of their good from 
their evil, or vice versa; that principle which 
may be predominant in their character remain- 
ing with them, as that alone belonging to 
them. If good be predominant, they ulti- 
mately go to heaven : and according to its 
quality and degree enjoy heavenly happiness. 
" In my Father's house are many mansions." 
(John xiv. 2.) " For one star differeth from 
another star in glory." (1 Cor. xv. 41.) When 
the character is developed by the ordeal of the 
world of spirits (there, things appearing as 
they are and not merely as they seem), if evil 



126 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

be shown to be predominant, then, such go 
to hell by choice ; for heaven could not be 
heavenly to them, owing to a total want of 
congeniality with its inhabitants. But, though 
hell is more agreeable to them, still they know 
nothing of genuine happiness ; for goodness 
is an essential ingredient of happiness. Those 
who at death are altogether evil go directly to 
hell; but there are few such. (For further 
particulars see Swedenborg concerning Hea- 
ven and Hell.) 

Both the Old and the New Churches believe 
that Regeneration is essential to salvation, 
but with this difference. Some of the sects 
of the Old Church think Conversion and Re- 
generation the same thing, thence that if one 
is merely convinced of the truth of Scripture, 
he will be saved ; thus they believe that a 
man who has been wicked all his life may go 
to heaven by a death-bed repentance, suppos- 
ing that the forgiveness granted by the Lord 
to the thief on the cross to be an instance of 
the efficacy of such repentance. 

The New Church make a wide distinction 
between conversion and regeneration. We 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 127 

think the former may be sudden, but that the 
latter cannot ; as regeneration is an entire 
change of character, of desires, affections, mo- 
tives and actions ; which can only be effected 
by temptations and self-denial ; therefore re- 
generation must be progressive, though the 
mere commencement of a regenerating life may 
be sudden ; but to be regenerated must take 
time. And that this is very different from 
mere conviction of the truth, is evident from 
Paul's description of regeneration : " The fruit 
of the Spirit is Love, (i. e. Benevolence,) Joy, 
Peace, Long (i. e. patient) Suffering, Gentle- 
ness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance." 
(Gal. v. 22, 23.) Can all these traits of 
character be acquired in a moment? All who 
have endeavored to lead a life of true Chris- 
tianity know to the contrary. Hence the 
inefficacy of a sudden death-bed repentance. 
The frequency with which the promises of 
amendment on the bed of sickness are violated 
on a return to health, has not escaped the 
ridicule and sarcasm of wits and satirists : 

" The Devil was sick, the Devil a Monk would be ; 
The Devil got well, the devil a Monk was he ! " 



128 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Yet, as a long protracted sickness may 
occasion many temptations and give oppor- 
tunities for much self-denial, on such a death- 
bed the character may be regenerated, but not 
suddenly. In the case of the thief on the 
cross, there is no evidence that this was his 
first act of repentance. He may have com- 
menced long before, a life of regeneration, and 
yet have met with this overpowering tempta- 
tion ; for many a sin is committed while we 
are regenerating ; and very few are wholly 
regenerated when they die. 

The opinions entertained by the Old Church 
with regard to the nature of heaven and hell 
are vague, uncertain and unsatisfactory. They 
think that after this life, we shall be a non- 
descript sort of beings, merely capable of great 
enjoyment or intense suffering, but wholly 
unlike what we were here, though God cre- 
ated us after his oivn image, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ appears a man in Heaven ; that 
we shall have nothing to do, but be eternally 
idle, or eternally singing the praises of God. 
According to this view, how intellectually 
inferior angels must be to men, and how far 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 129 

less conceivable is the happiness of heaven 
to the known happiness of this earth ! 

The New Church teach concise, definite 
and most satisfactory views of the life after 
death. We believe that after this mortal 
body is cast off we shall still be men and 
women ; not of material substance, but of 
spiritual incorruptible substance, of an ap- 
pearance perfectly correspondent to our char- 
acters; that if these are lovely, our form and 
features will be of surpassing beauty, loveli- 
ness and eternal youth, or vigorous maturity; 
and that if our characters are unlovely, our 
external appearance will be equally hideous ; 
that we shall lose nothing intrinsically real 
by death. 

u Behold the lifeless clay ! 

'Tis dead to live no more : 
But lo ! the MAN has wing'd his way 
To an immortal shore. 

The dust alone remains ; 
The MAN has fled and gone, 
And, loosen' d from his cumbrous chains, 
A brighter form puts on. 

There's nothing lost by death, 
Except mere senseless clay ; 
9 



130 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Nor is the soul a transient breath, 
Like vapor blown away. 

The SPIRIT is the MAN, 

Of substance real possessed, 
With every sense and power that can 
Make him forever blest." 

We believe that all our faculties, sensations 
and affections will be a hundred fold clearer, 
keener and more exquisite after the death of 
the material body, and that our spiritual body 
will be of the same sex as was our material 
body, but purified and divested of those 
grosser functions and corruptions which be- 
long only to the world of nature. Those 
who die infants, in heaven rapidly progress 
to lovely and perfect youth under the teaching 
of angels ; their mental, rational and moral 
characters are developed till they attain the 
perfection of manhood or the perfection of 
womanhood. Those who die at mature age, 
if their spirits are heavenly, never become old, 
but the longer they dwell in heaven the more 
youthful they grow in lovely appearance and 
happy joyousness. There are also angels of 
wise and vigorous age according to circum- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 131 

stances, but it is a happy age, and not one of 
infirmity. In heaven there is no sickness, no 
death, no poverty, no adversity, no unkind- 
ness, no selfishness, no cruelty, no enmity, no 
envy, but all is harmony and peace ; and the 
chief delight of the angels is to make each 
other happy ; each being the recipient of the 
benevolence and kindness of all, each enjoys 
to the full extent of his powers of enjoyment ; 
each dwelling in the temperature suited to his 
temperament, surrounded by the sphere of 
congeniality, and mingling only with such 
spirits as are congenial to his own. The tie 
of kindred in heaven is spiritual congeniality, 
not as on earth, where the tie of kindred is 
merely the tie of consanguinity, while some- 
times here the members of the same family 
are, in spirit, as opposed to each other as dark- 
ness is opposed to light. Hence, in heaven, 
parents and children, brothers and sisters, of 
earth, dwell only together as such, who are 
united by the tie of spiritual congeniality. 
After the death of the natural body, they meet 
in the spiritual world ; but if there is no tie 



132 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

of congeniality between them, they afterwards 
withdraw from each other and dwell apart. 

Travelling in the spiritual world is as swift 
as THOUGHT: we think of those we love. 
And behold ! that instant they become present ! 
If the angels desire to communicate with the 
spirits of the other planets, who were once in- 
habitants in a natural body, in many respects 
similar to our own, on those planets, which 
are also earths in many respects similar to our 
earth, though there is a vast space between 
our planet and theirs, and the spiritual world 
of each usually surrounds the planet whence 
the inhabitants lived when they were in the 
material body, still, if angels of our earth wish 
to communicate with spirits of the other 
earths, the Lord permits it, and the desire is 
no sooner formed than they become present 
with each other. Hence, how inexhaustible 
must be the source of entertainment in the 
Heavens. There, there is no weariness nor 
satiety, but an indefinite variety, much of 
which blissfulness cannot be expressed in 
language, nor even be conceived by our souls 
while shackled in this mortal body. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 133 

The incongruities of the earth are of con- 
tinual occurrence : external beauty here is 
frequently but the covering of internal ugli- 
ness and evil ; often, also, is external ugliness 
the covering of internal beauty and holiness. 
It is not so in the spiritual world. There the 
external is always in perfect conformity to the 
internal. In Heaven the more lovely the soul 
is, the more beautiful is the face and form of 
the angel ; so, also, is the scenery around each 
angel correspondent in beauty with the 
thoughts and affections. So, also, is the hab- 
itation of external beauty and proportions 
according to his or her spiritual state, which 
change also as the states change, making all 
external appearances suitable, adapted and 
correspondent to the internal. These changes 
are effected in a manner only conceivable to 
us while on earth, as the changes that we see 
in our dreams. In heaven there is no toiling 
for acquiring houses and lands, but all is 
instantaneously provided by the Lord suitable 
to our spiritual states. In the Hells, also, the 
scenery is correspondent to the spiritual ugli- 
ness of the inhabitants, — such as wild beasts, 



134 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

reptiles, offensive odors, and venomous plants, 
yet, none of these are of natural or of material 
substance, but entirely spiritual appearances, 
which change and disappear according to 
circumstances. It must ever be borne in 
mind that the description of things in the 
spiritual world, both in heaven and hell, are 
never of material substance, but are wholly 
spiritual appearances suitably adapted to spir- 
itual beings, both angels and devils. Without 
we always remember this, while reading in 
Swedenborg what he styles his " Memorable 
Relations," we shall very greatly misunder- 
stand him, and conceive very erroneous views 
of his writings. 

It is easy to imagine some of the employ- 
ments of heaven, if we justly conceive what 
sort of being an angel is. Beside intellectual 
employments, the chief aim of angels is to 
make others like themselves happy, wise and 
good, — this employment is not restricted to 
the spiritual world, though more openly mani- 
fest there, — they are also employed in serving 
the inhabitants of this earth, while still living 
here. " And the Angel said unto them, fear 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 135 

not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of 
great joy, which shall be to all people." (Luke 
ii. 10.) " And it came to pass, that the beg- 
gar died, and was carried by the angels into 
Abraham's bosom." (Luke xvi. 22.) It is 
plain from Scripture, that while we are here 
we have ministering attendant angels. " Take 
heed that ye despise not one of these little 
ones : for I say unto you, that in heaven their 
angels do always behold the face of my Father 
which is in heaven." (Matt, xviii. 10.) 

" While round its bed each hov'ring friend 
Laments the fruitless succor given, 
ANGELS invisibly attend, 

And waft the smiling babe to heaven. 

Removed before that age mature, 

When man account must give, 
His bright inheritance is sure j 

With God his soul shall live. 

Angels the welcome guest receive, 

To their affection given, 
And train him up to know, believe 

And serve the God of heaven. 

Daily he shall in knowledge rise, 

In beauteous stature grow, 
Become, like angels, good and wise, 

And with their raptures glow." 



136 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

In the New Church it is believed that in 
heaven there exists the true happiness of 
social intercourse ; that there the bond of com- 
panionship and kindred will be spiritual con- 
geniality ; and that there the happiness of 
loving and being loved will be in its perfection; 
hence, a true, congenial, spiritual union of 
heart and mind with wedded partners will 
remain a happy union to eternity : for such 
God hath joined together ; " and they shall 
be one flesh." (Gen. ii. 24; Matt. xix. 5.) 
" Wherefore they are no more (never) twain^ 
but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath 
joined together, let not man put asunder." 
(Matt. xix. 6; Mark x. 8, 9.) 

To this the Old Church object that Christ 
said to the Sadducees : "When they shall 
rise from the dead they neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage ; but are as the angels 
which are in heaven." (Mark xii. 25.) We 
answer, that the Lord alluded to such mar- 
riages, and giving in marriage as the Sad- 
ducees practised; as on this occasion they 
instanced the case of a woman who had been 
successively given in marriage to seven hus- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 137 

bands ; that, therefore, the Lord spake with 
regard to worldly and not spiritual marriages; 
as the Sadducees stated, that Moses had 
given a law that a man should marry his 
sister-in-law for the purpose of raising up 
children to his deceased brother. And with 
this view seven brothers had married one 
woman, which act had reference only to 
worldly things, to a worldly law which united 
bodies and estates, but which had no ref- 
erence whatever to that union of soul which 
is heaven-born, and of which the Sadducees 
were in total ignorance; therefore, about 
which they made no inquiry. Hence, it is 
most true, the angels enter not into that state 
which the Sadducees called marriage. The 
Lord also alluded to the internal or spiritual 
sense of marriage, which is the marriage of 
Goodness and Truth, or True Wisdom, which 
takes place in every regenerated person, and 
which is signified in the Scriptures by the 
marriage of the Lord and His Church. In 
this sense the Lord meant that that spiritual 
marriage, which is genuine righteousness, 
must be commenced on earth ; for it could 



13S 



POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



not be entered into after this state of proba- 
tion is passed. It is true that the Sadducees 
did not understand this internal meaning, and 
the Lord knew that they w T ould not. He 
knew that they were too carnally minded to 
comprehend what a true marriage is, therefore, 
in silencing them, he uttered an internal truth, 
which he knew the time would come when 
men's minds would be prepared to receive. 
He also knew that the time was not then, 
therefore he permitted them to misunderstand 
his words, as he did also when he said, 
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I 
will raise it up." (John ii. 19.) The Jews 
thought he alluded to the Jewish temple ; and 
replied : " Forty-and-six years was this temple 
in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three 
days ? " (John ii. 20.) He did not explain to 
them that they misunderstood his words ; but 
the evangelist, in the next and following 
verses (John ii. 21, 22,) says : " But he spake 
of the temple of his body. When, therefore, 
he was risen from the dead, his disciples re* 
membered that he had said this unto them, 
and they believed the Scripture and the word 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 139 

which Jesus had said." Many similar pas- 
sages are to be found in Scripture ; and happy 
for us would it be, if all at the present day, 
like those Jews, also believed, when the inter- 
nal sense is revealed to them. This the New 
Church do, but the Old do not. 

" How happy must it be, 

How pleasing, Lord, the sight, 
When mutual love, and love to thee, 
A married pair unite ! 

From these celestial springs 

Such streams of comfort flow, 
As neither wealth nor beauty brings, 

Nor outward gifts bestow. 

Both in their stations move, 

And each performs a part 
In all the cares of life and love, 

With sympathizing heart. 

Form'd for the purest joys, 

By one desire possess'd, 
One aim the zeal of both employs, 

To make each other blest." 

" They range the intellectual fields, 
And taste the joys that wisdom yields ; 
And, while engaged in sweet discourse, 
Together rise to wisdom's source. 



140 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Age shall not cool the sacred fire, 
Nor shall the flame with death expire, 
But brighter burn in heaven above, — 
A heaven of joy, because of love." 

Ill assorted marriages are not eternal, but 
are dissolved at death, as well as the union 
understood by the Sadducees ; for, such " God 
hath not joined together," but only man ; 
therefore, they may be put asunder. 

But with regard to that union which Swe- 
denborg calls a true marriage, had not this 
been ordained for the angels in heaven it 
would not have been made in Scripture the 
constant type of that indissoluble union 
which exists between the Lord and His 
Church. If it were only a state for this 
world, undue honor seems to have been done 
to it in the following texts, viz : " For thy 
Maker is thine husband, the Lord of Hosts is 
his name."* " Turn, O backsliding children, 
saith the Lord, for I am married unto you."f 
"And I will betroth thee unto me forever; 
yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteous- 
ness and in judgment and in loving kindness 

* Is. liv. 5. t Jer. iii. 14. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 141 

• 

and in mercies : I will even betroth thee unto 
me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the 
Lord." * " Let us be glad and rejoice, and 
give honor to him ; for the Marriage of the 
Lamb is come, and his Wife hath made her- 
self ready. And he saith unto me, write, 
Blessed are they which are called unto the 
Marriage Supper of the Lamb."f " And 
John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, 
coming down from God out of heaven pre- 
pared as a Bride adorned for her Husband. 
I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's vnfe"% 

Of spiritual marriage the Rev. S. Noble, 
in his " Appeal in behalf of the New Church," 
expresses himself as follows : " It is certain 
that man could not be receptive of either good- 
ness or truth, either of charity or faith from 
the Lord, were he not created with faculties 
adapted for their entertainment. Accordingly, 
he has two great faculties in his mental con- 
stitution of which all his mental powers are 
specific modifications ; which faculties are 
commonly denominated the will and the 
understanding ; the will being the seat of all 

* Hos. ii. 19, 20. t Rev. xix. 7, 9. X Rev. xxi. 2, 9. 



142 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

man's desires and affections ; and the under- 
standing the seat of all his thoughts and ideas. 
The understanding can comprehend the truths 
of religion, even while man is in an unregene- 
rate state, otherwise he never could become 
regenerate at all, yet such truths are never 
agreeable to it while the will is in evil. But the 
will cannot love genuine goodness, except by 
regeneration, although there may be amiable, 
natural affections, such as those of good 
nature in the will by birth. The heavenly 
marriage, then, consists in the reception of 
goodness in the will, as well as of truth in the 
understanding, and in the uniting into one of 
the will and understanding, in the acknowl- 
edgment, love and service of the Lord. It is 
by virtue of such marriage that the mind 
becomes replenished with heavenly graces 
through all its powers. New affections of 
goodness and new perceptions of truth, then, 
spring up in it every day, which are a spiritual 
offspring, flowing from the union of goodness 
and truth in the inmost of the mind. And 
the whole is the result of the Divine operation 
of the Lord, continually flowing into, and 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 143 

rendering fruitful the goodness and truth in 
unison, which man has received from him : 
thus the whole of the spiritual births produced 
in the human mind are derived from the mar- 
riage of the Lord and the Church ; for which 
reason, also, the Church is sometimes described 
in the Word as a mother ; and all know that 
the Lord is the universal Father. This, then, 
is the case with every one who becomes re- 
generate, whether man or woman. In all, the 
heavenly marriage takes place." 

The same author explains the correspond- 
ence of this spiritual marriage in the consti- 
tution of man and woman, the first having a 
predominance of intellect, and the second 
a predominance of affection. He says, " In- 
tellect is not a more excellent attribute than 
affection, and in affection, undoubtedly, the 
superiority is all on the side of the female sex. 
The sexes were thus endowed with equal but 
distinct excellences, that they might not en- 
gage in rivalry, but combine in union ; that 
the female might both soften and exalt the 
intellect of the male, and that masculine intel- 
lect might guide and protect female affection. 



144 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

Affection without intellect is blind ; intellect 
without affection is dead: when united, intel- 
lect is quickened with life, — affection rejoices 
in light. The female mind, however, is by- no 
means destitute of intellect, nor the male 
destitute of affection. But who can look at 
both and not allow that the two principles 
exist in the two unequal proportions, so that 
one only, forms the predominating character- 
istic of each? Hence it is that when a male 
and female mind really enter into interior 
union, which never can take place but where 
both are grounded in the heavenly marriage of 
goodness and truth, the perfection of each is 
immensely exalted, and with it the happiness; 
each is a more perfect angel than either could 
be separately, and the union of minds becomes 
so perfect, that before the Lord, by whom 
minds only are looked at, they become a one." 
This, then, is that marriage which we 
affirm to be perpetual and to exist in heaven, 
it being derived from the marriage of goodness 
and truth, which constitutes heaven ; hence 
the outward union is only a true marriage, 
where the inner union of minds exists also; 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 145 

any other marriage contracted in this world, 
is for this world only. And, all those who 
have within themselves the marriage of good- 
ness and truth, and yet who have been unhap- 
pily married here, or who have never been 
married, all such, we believe, will meet with 
their true partners in heaven.* 

* Swedenborg makes one exception to this, viz : such who, 
from religious views, have destroyed within themselves the 
natural principle of conjugal love, but that such do not fully 
enjoy heaven. 



10 



146 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



CHAPTER IX. 

Of the Sabbath — Several Quotations from Swedenborg — 
Of Amusements — Of Dancing — Advice with regard to the 
perusal of the most suitable Religious Books — Concluding 
Remarks. 

That rigid adherence to external worship 
is most conspicuously demonstrated in the Old 
Christian Church in their observance of the 
Sabbath, though they have changed the day 
from Saturday to Sunday, in commemoration 
of the rising of the Lord from the grave on 
the first day of the week, hence called the 
Lord's day ; the Jews kept the last (or seventh) 
day of the week, in commemoration of the 
creation of the world, as the commandment 
in the Decalogue implies in the sense of the 
letter^ that is, the literal or natural sense. The 
Jews mistook the shadow for the substance, 
as do also the Old Christian Church, being 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 147 

ignorant of the Internal meaning of this 
Commandment. 

As an instance of the Pharisaical spirit 
with which the Old Christian Church view 
the keeping of the Sabbath, we give the fol- 
lowing extract from a journal of the day : 

" A Discourse on the Life and Character of 
the Rev. Charles Hall, D. D., by the Rev. Asa 
D. Smith, is published by the American Home 
Missionary Society, of which the deceased 
was a Secretary. Among the virtues of Dr. 
Hall, enumerated by his eulogist, are his de- 
votion to the cause of Missions, his love of 
the Bible, and his strict observance of the 
Sabbath. The following instance of the last 
named grace, presents a rare example of Sab- 
batical zeal : ' Neither by labor, by recreation, 
nor by travel, under whatever urgency of 
temptation, would he desecrate the blessed 
day of God. After a week's toil in a narrow 
room in the crowded city, he would resolutely 
decline walking in his garden on that day, 
however solicited by the early flowers, the 
Spring birds and the balmy air. He would 
avoid the very appearance of evil ; he would 



148 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

not even seem to saunter away the holy 
hours. On his return from his tour in Europe, 
the ship that bore him arrived at the wharf in 
this city on Sabbath morning. His family 
were at Newark ; a little more than half an 
hour's ride in the cars would have taken him 
there. His affectionate heart yearned to greet 
them; but it was the Lord's Day, and his 
eye was still i single.' So he tarried in the 
city until Monday, ' and rested the Sabbath 
day, according to the commandment.' " 

If Dr. Charles Hall had better understood 
the true meaning of the commandment, he 
might have been enabled to see that he could 
have yielded to the yearnings of his affection- 
ate heart without committing any sin against 
God, who is " Love." The external sacred- 
ness with which Sunday is invested by the 
Old Christian Church is at variance with the 
teachings of our Saviour. He, when on earth, 
did not set any such example. The Jews 
blamed his conduct, and in effect the Old 
Church Christians are more followers of the 
Jews than of Christ. 

The Jewish Sabbath was sacred because it 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 149 

was a representative of Christianity, and im- 
plied rest from spiritual warfare ; signifying 
an internal religion, of which the Jewish cer- 
emonies and rituals were merely typical, and 
not of any intrinsic holiness ; hence, the ad- 
vent of the antetype abrogated the type of 
the Sabbath, together with all the other exter- 
nal ordinances and rituals of the Jewish re- 
ligion, as may be abundantly proved by quo- 
tations from the New Testament. In Matt. 
xii., where it is related that the Pharisees 
found fault with the Saviour and his disciples 
for going through the fields and eating the 
ears of corn on the Sabbath, which, according 
to their religion was unlawful, Christ replies, 
" If ye had known what this meaneth, I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not 
have condemned the guiltless. For the Son 
of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." 

On another occasion, related in John v., 
after Jesus had healed an impotent man, he 
ordered him to carry his bed on the Sabbath 
day, for which desecration of the Sabbath, 
when the Jews persecuted him and sought to 
slay him, he replied, "My Father worketh hith- 



150 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

erto, and I work." On another occasion, when 
accused of breaking the Sabbath, he said, " Is 
it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, or 
to do evil ?" And as the Lord did not teach 
that it was lawful to do evil on that day, His 
example was to keep every day holy, and not 
merely the Sabbath. We do not find that he 
made any difference of days. He taught the 
people on all fitting occasions, in their syna- 
gogues on the Sabbath, because the Jews then 
assembled. He preached to them, also, on the 
first day of the week, and indifferently on any 
day. His Apostles did the same. 

There were, in the days of the Apostles, 
converts from Judaism to the Christian faith, 
who, retaining their prejudices in favor of the 
Jewish rituals, taught the necessity of them 
to Gentile converts. These not understand- 
ing the matter, were perplexed, though anxious 
to do what was right. The Apostle Paul 
writes to them, that all the rituals of the 
Jewish law were removed by the coming of 
the Lord, and were no longer to be observed. 
He says, " Let no man therefore judge you in 
meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 151 

or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath, which 
are a shadow of things to come." He also 
says, " One believeth that he may eat all 
things, another, who is weak, eateth herbs. 
Let not him who eateth, despise him who eat- 
eth not ; and let not him who eateth not, 
judge him who eateth. One man esteemeth 
one day above another ; another esteemeth 
every day alike. Let every man be fully per- 
suaded in his own mind." (See Col. ii. iii., 
and Rom. xiv.) 

The Old Christian Church plead that as 
the command affirms that God rested after the 
labor of the creation of this world, " where- 
fore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and 
hallowed it," hence it is binding on Christians, 
they say, to abstain from all labor, recreations 
or amusements, or doing their own pleasure 
on the first day, or the Lord's Day, or Sunday, 
which they call the Sabbath, and to devote 
the whole of that day to prayer, religious 
meditation, and all external worship, is the 
way to keep the day holy ; to do otherwise on 
Sunday, they think, would be a great sin 
against God. Some religionists go so far as 



152 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

to imagine that to use a needle on Sunday is 
as wicked as to steal. If they understood the 
true character of God, and what True Wor- 
ship is, they might see how great is their error. 
The commandment in Exodus xx. 8, 9, 10 
and 11 verses, is stated as follows : " Remem- 
ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six 
days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but 
the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord 
thy God,: in it thou shalt not do any work, 
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man- 
servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, 
nor thy stranger that is within thy gates : 
for in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord 
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." 
But in Deuteronomy, v. 12, 13, 14, 15 verses, 
the same commandment is stated, with this 
difference : instead of affirming that God rest- 
ed after the creation, and that therefore the 
Lord commanded the Sabbath day to be kept, 
it is stated in the 15th verse, thus : " And re- 
member that thou wast a servant in the Land 
of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 15-3 

thee out thence through a mighty hand and 
by a stretched-out arm, therefore the Lord thy 
God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath 
day." 

This difference in the letter would seem a 
discrepancy, yet, in the internal sense it is not ; 
as both events have the same internal mean- 
ing, that is, the regeneration of man. 

Every word of the commandment has a 
spiritual meaning, which does not clearly ap- 
pear in the letter, though the present era of 
the world is signalized by the blessing of the 
spiritual or internal sense of the whole Word 
being explained, published and extant. The 
whole decalogue is certainly obligatory when 
rightly understood. But any interpretation 
contrary to the teaching and example of our 
Saviour cannot be rightly understood. And 
He did not teach nor practice mere external 
forms. The Creation, as stated in the Bible, 
does not refer to the Creation of this natural 
world. 

With reference to Genesis ii. 2, 3, the cor- 
rect interpretation may be found in a small 
work by the Rev. Wm. B. Hayden, entitled 



154 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

' Science and Revelation ; or the Bearing of 
Modern Scientific Developments upon the 
Interpretation of the First Eleven Chapters 
of Genesis.' * From this work we extract as 
follows: 

" This account of the Creation (as we have 
already maintained) refers exclusively to spir- 
itual things, and is an inspired account of the 
very process of sanctification itself, as it pro- 
gressively takes place in the mind of the per- 
severing believer. The seventh day is the 
seventh state, or stage, of that progress in 
which the sanctified person enters and enjoys 
a state of peace, holy quiet, or rest. This is 
in consequence of being wholly redeemed 
from his spiritual enemies ; evil has no further 
power over him, and his militant state may be 
said to be passed. This state is not often ar- 
rived at in this life, but may be, if we heartily 
strive for it, and has been undoubtedly, by 
many in the history of the church. It is this 
state of holy rest which is signified by the 
Sabbath ; and it was on account of this cor- 
respondence or signification that the seventh 
* Published by Otis Clapp, Boston. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 155 

day of the week was hallowed and ordered 
by the Lord to be kept." 

Another extract from the same is as fol- 
lows : 

" The simple truth of the whole matter, 
stated in plain English, without exaggeration 
or concealment, is just this : The Mosaic ac- 
count of the Creation, taken as it stands, in 
its obvious, literal import, is in direct contra- 
diction to all the objective facts as they exist 
in nature. The process, as written, does not 
agree with the process as revealed by the most 
rigid science in any one of its particulars. It 
is discrepant in all its details. Not a single 
passage in it, or part of a passage, gives rise 
to any idea which would be gathered without 
the account from an examination of the facts 
themselves. The only thing that can be said 
of it is, that as a description of the creation of 
the outward universe, it is simply untrue in 
every one of its statements. 

" This is a broad allegation, and one which 
we have no fear will be called in question by 
competent authority. We cannot see, there- 
fore, why all those who wish to maintain the 



156 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures 
will not be obliged, sooner or later, to accept 
them in their higher and spiritual import, and 
to acknowledge that this account refers solely 
to the re-creation of the spirit of man — that 
world which is within us — and not to the 
outward, physical universe." 

This is in perfect conformity with the 
whole Bible. We have above shown that the 
internal or spiritual sense of the word is the 
most important and the one for which it was 
written. The Lord's servant, Emanuel Swe- 
denborg's mission was to explain this sense 
to the world. He says : " Conjunction is af- 
fected by correspondences ; for heaven, or the 
angels of heaven, understand all things spir- 
itually which man understands naturally, and 
between natural and spiritual things there is a 
perpetual correspondence, and by . correspon- 
dence is effected such a conjunction as that 
which exists between the soul and the body. 
And hence it is that the Word is written in 
such a style, for otherwise it would be without 
soul or life, consequently there would be noth- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 157 

ing of heaven in it, neither would there be 
anything divine." 

In his " True Christian Religion," No. 301, 
he says of the commandment concerning the 
Sabbath, " By this in the natural sense, 
which is the sense of the letter, is meant that 
six days are for man and his labors, and the 
seventh for the Lord, and for man's rest 
from Him. Sabbath, in the original tongue, 
signifies rest. The Sabbath among the sons 
of Israel was the sanctity of sanctities, be- 
cause it represented the Lord ; the six days, 
his labors and combats with the hells ; and 
the seventh, his victory over them, and thus 
rest ; and because that day was representative 
of the close of the whole redemption of the 
Lord ; therefore it was holiness itself. But 
when the Lord came into the world, and 
thence the representations of Mm ceased, that 
day became a day of instruction in divine 
things, and thus also a day of rest from labors, 
and of meditation on such things as are of 
salvation and eternal life ; as also a day of 
love towards the neighbor. That it became 
a day of instruction in divine things, is mani- 



158 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

fest from this, that the Lord on that day- 
taught in the temple and synagogues, (Mark 
vi. 2; Luke iv. 16, 31, 32; xiii. 10); and that 
he said to the man who was healed, " Take 
up thy bed and walk;" and to the Pharisees 
" That it was lawful for the disciples on the Sab- 
bath day to gather the ears of com and to eat" 
(Matt. xii. 1 to 9 ; Mark ii. 23 to the end; Luke 
vi. 1 to 6 ; John v. 9 to 19) ; by which partic- 
ulars, in the spiritual sense, is signified, to be 
instructed in doctrinals. That that day be- 
came also a day of love towards the neighbor, 
is evident from those things which the Lord 
did and taught on the day of the Sabbath. 
(Matt. xii. 10 to 14 ; Mark iii. 1 to 9 ; Luke 
vi. 6 to 12 ; xiii. 10 to 18 ; xiv. 1 to 7 ; John v. 
9 to 19 ; vii. 22, 23 ; ix. 14, 16.) From these 
and the former passages, it is manifest why 
the Lord said that " He is Lord also of the 
Sabbath," (Matt. xii. 8 ; Mark ii. 28 ; Luke vi. 
5) ; and because he said this, it follows that 
that day was representative of Him. 

" 302. By this commandment, in the spir- 
itual sense is signified the reformation and 
regeneration of man by the Lord ; by the 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 159 

six days of labor, the combat against the flesh 
and its concupiscences, and, at the same time, 
against the evils and falses which are with 
him from hell ; and by the seventh day is sig- 
nified his conjunction with the Lord, and 
thereby regeneration; that, as long as that 
combat continues, man has spiritual labor, but 
that when he is regenerated, he has rest, will 
be evident from those things which will be 
said hereafter in the chapter concerning Ref- 
ormation and Regeneration, &c. &c. The 
reason why the reformation and regeneration 
of man are signified by this commandment in 
the spiritual sense, is, because they coincide 
with the labors and combats of the Lord with 
the hells, and with the victory over them, and 
rest then, for the Lord reforms and regenerates 
man and renders him spiritual, in the same 
manner in which he glorified his Human and 
made it Divine. This is what is meant by 
following him. That the Lord had combats, 
and that they are called labors, is manifest in 
Isaiah liii. lxiii., and that similar things are 
called labors in relation to men, Is. lxv. 23 ; 
Rev. ii. 23. 



160 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

" 303. In the celestial sense, by this 
commandment is meant conjunction with the 
Lord, and then peace, because protection from 
hell ; for by the Sabbath is signified rest, and 
in this highest sense peace ; wherefore the 
Lord is called the Prince of Peace, and also 
he calls himself Peace, as is evident from these 
passages : A Child is bom to us, a Son is giveit 
to us, upon ivhose shoulders shall be the govern- 
ment, and, his name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, God, Hero, the Father of Eternity, 
the Prince of Peace, to the increase of his 
government and Peace there ivill be no end, 
(Isaiah ix. 6, 7.) Jesus said, Peace I leave to 
you, my Peace I give to yon. (John xiv. 27.) 
Jesns said, I have spoken these things, that in 
me ye may have peace. (John xvi. 33.) How 
delightful upon the mountains are the feet of 
him who bringeth good tidings, who publisheth 
Peace, saying thy king reigneth. (Isaiah liii. 
7.) Jehovah will redeem my soul in Peace. 
(Ps. lv. 18.) The work of Jehovah is 
Peace, the labor of righteousness is rest 
and security forever, that they may dwell 
in a habitation of peace and in tents of 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 161 
SECURITY, AND IN TRANQUIL RESTING-PLACES. 

(Isaiah xxxii. 17, 18.) Jesus said to the seventy 
whom he sent forth, into whatsoever house ye 
enter, first say Peace to this house, and if a 
Son of Peace be there, your Peace shall rest 
upon him. (Luke x. 5, 6 ; Matt. x. 12, 13, 14.) 
Jehovah ivill speak Peace to his people. Right- 
eousness and peace shall kiss each other. (Ps. 
lxxxv. 9, 10.) When the Lord appeared to 
the disciples he said, Peace be with you. 
(John xx. 19, 21, 26.) Moreover, the state of 
peace into which those who are regenerated 
by the Lord are about to come, is treated of 
in Isaiah lxv. and lxvi., and in other places ; 
and those will come into it who are received 
jnto the New Church, which the Lord is at 
this day instituting. What the peace is in its 
essence, in which the angels of heaven are 
and those who are in the Lord, may be seen 
in the work concerning Heaven and Hell, 
No. 284 to 290. From these things^ also, it is 
manifest why the Lord calls himself the Lord 
of the Sabbath, that is, of rest and peace. 
" 304. Celestial peace, which is in respect 

to the hells, that evils and falses may not 
11 



162 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

thence arise and invade, may be compared 
with natural peace, in many cases, as with 
peace after wars, &c. &c. It may be compar- 
ed, also, with recreations of mind, and with 
rests after grievous labors," &c. &c. 

The New Church do not consider Holiness 
to consist In mere external worship. True 
Holiness must be spiritual, so must all true 
morality be spiritual, — none other can pro- 
mote our salvation as Christians. What these 
are, Swedenborg explains in the following 
words in his "Apocalypse Explained," No. 
325. " "Worship does not consist in prayers 
and in external devotion, but in a life of char- 
ity ; prayers are only the externals thereof, for 
they proceed from the man by his mouth, 
wherefore, according to the quality of the 
man as to his life, such are his prayers. It 
matters not whether a man assumes an hum- 
ble deportment, kneels and sighs when he 
prays: these are external things, and unless 
the externals proceed from internals, they are 
only gestures and sounds without life. Actual 
piety is to act in every work and in every 
function from what is sincere and right, and 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 163 

from what is just and equitable, and this be- 
cause it is commanded by the Lord in the 
Word; for thus man in every work looks to 
Heaven and to the Lord, with whom he is 
thus conjoined. But to act according to sin- 
cerity and rectitude, justice and equity, solely 
from fear of the law, of the loss of fame, or 
of honor and gain, and to think nothing con- 
cerning the Divine law, concerning the pre- 
cepts of the "Word, and concerning the Lord, 
and notwithstanding to pray devoutly in tem- 
ples, is only external piety, which, how holy 
soever it may appear, is not piety, but is either 
hypocrisy or somewhat feigned, derived from 
habit, or somewhat persuasive from a false 
persuasion that therein alone consists Divine 
Worship ; for such a one does not look from 
his heart to heaven and to the Lord, but only 
with the eyes, the heart looking to self and to 
the world, and the mouth speaking from the 
habit of the body only and its memory. By 
such worship man is conjoined to the world 
and not to heaven ; also to himself and not to 
the Lord. For the same reason, the Lord 
taught that in praying much speaking and 



164 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

repetition should not be used ; as in Matt. vi. 
7, 8, ' But when ye pray use not vain repeti- 
tions as the heathen do, for they think they 
shall be heard for their much speaking. Be 
not ye therefore like unto them.' Now foras- 
much as essential Divine Worship consists 
primarily in a life of charity, and secondarily 
in prayers, therefore by prayers, in the spiritual 
sense of the word, is understood worship from 
spiritual good, that is, from the life of charity, 
for that which is the primary is understood in 
the spiritual sense, whereas the sense of the 
letter consists of things secondary, which are 
effects and correspond. Moreover, man con- 
tinually prays when he is in the life of charity, 
although not with the mouth, yet with the 
heart ; for that which is of the love, is contin- 
ually in the thought, even when he is uncon- 
scious of it," &c. &c. 

Swedenborg says in No. 182, " A moral 
life is to act well, sincerely and justly in the 
discharge of the various functions and busi- 
ness of life ; in a word, it is the life apparent 
before men, because transacted with them ; 
but this life is from a twofold origin, either 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 165 

from the love of self and the world, or from love 
to God and love towards our neighbor. The 
moral life, grounded in the love of self and the 
world, is not in itself a moral life, although it 
appears as such, for the man who thus acts, 
does so for the sake of himself and the world 
only ; and to him, what is good, sincere and 
just, serve but as means to an end ; that is, 
either that he may be raised above others and 
command them, or that he may gain wealth. 
Such are the thoughts of his heart, or when 
he is in secret, but he dare not openly avow 
what he thus thinks, because it would destroy 
the opinion of others concerning him, and 
thus annihilate the means by which he desires 
to attain his ends. But spiritual life is alto- 
gether of another quality, because it is from a 
different origin ; for it springs from love to 
God, and love towards our neighbor ; and 
hence the moral life of spiritual persons is also 
different, and is truly moral; for these when 
they think in their spirit, which is the case 
when they are in secret, do not think from self 
and the world, but from the Lord and heaven; 
for the interiors of their mind, that is, of their 



166 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

thought and will, are actually elevated by the 
Lord into heaven, and are there conjoined 
to himself. Thus the Lord flows into their 
thoughts, intentions and ends, and rules them 
and withdraws them from their proprium, 
which is wholly derived from love of self and 
of the world. The moral life of such persons 
is, in appearance, similar to that of those men- 
tioned above ; but still it is spiritual, for it is 
from a spiritual origin, being only the effect of 
the spiritual life which is the efficient cause ; 
and thus the origin, &c. &c. From these 
considerations it may be known also what a 
moral life derived from a spiritual is, and what 
a moral life is without a spiritual, namely; 
that a moral life derived from a spiritual is 
truly a moral life, which may be said to be 
spiritual, inasmuch as its cause and origin 
is thence derived; but that a moral life with- 
out a spiritual is not a moral life, and may 
be said to be infernal, for so far as the love of 
self and of the world reigns in it so far it is 
fraudulent and hypocritical." 

There is one other point of difference be- 
tween the members of the New Jerusalem 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 167 

and many religionists of the Old Church. It 
is with regard to public and social amuse- 
ments. By some church members they are 
deemed altogether wicked. We are of a dif- 
ferent opinion. We think that in many in- 
stances amusements are not only sinless, but 
even profitable, as they serve as a relaxation 
from care and labor, by which means they 
promote a healthful tone of mind and body, 
which is essential to usefulness; and they also 
serve to promote the social affections with 
instruction. Therefore, there are cases in 
which to partake of amusements becomes a 
duty. But let it not be supposed that we 
advocate indiscriminate indulgence in amuse- 
ments ; far from it. We deem it very essential 
to participate in them with moderation, always 
accompanied with pure thoughts, kindly feel- 
ings and moral intentions, and never to join in 
them at the sacrifice of greater duties ; but 
we do not condemn what the Bible does not. 
The playhouse was first instituted for a 
school of pure ethics, and well is it adapted 
for moral instruction. 

" To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, 
To raise the genius and to mend the heart. 



168 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, 

Live o'er each scene, and be "what they behold. 

For this the tragic muse first trod the stage, 

Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age; 

Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, 

And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept." — Pope. 

Vice does not necessarily belong to it, but 
rather is a perversion introduced by the abusers 
of good things. If righteous people would 
support it by their attendance and by sanc- 
tioning only what is good and true, they 
would do more to reform the drama, and thus 
the world, than by teaching that theatricals 
and dancing are w 7 holly incompatible with 
religion. Many tender consciences have been 
rendered miserable in youth by being taught 
that God requires of them unnatural austerity. 
Tracts upon tracts have been written against 
dancing ; in opposition to w T hich we wrote an 
article which appeared in the Knickerbocker 
of October, 1846, and, as it was most favor- 
ably received by the liberal public, we here 
republish it : 

IS DANCING SINFUL? 
Before we pronounce any practice sinful, 
is it not the duty of every just man and con- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 169 

scientious Christian fairly to examine both sides 
of the question, with a mind unbiassed by 
any preconceived opinion, or previous teach- 
ing, or early impression ? And is it not also 
his duty to make the Bible only his standard 
for determining what is sinful and what is 
not ? If these two points be conceded, (and 
we see not how they can in justice be denied,) 
we think it can be fairly proved, not only that 
dancing in itself is not sinful, but, furthermore, 
that it is a means of promoting the Christian 
spirit. 

We know that many Christians imagine 
that an essential of religion is melancholy ; 
another name for what, perhaps, they consider 
mere solemnity. Whence arose this conceit ? 
We have not Holy Writ for its authority. 
Must not, then, religion have first received 
its garb of gloom from disappointment and 
satiety? — or from sad old age, which, no 
longer feeling the buoyancy of youth, had 
forgotten that gloominess would be an un- 
natural exotic in the freshness of the youthful 
mind ? The sad and sorrowing, who have 
passed their lives in thoughtless levity, may, 



170 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

in despair at the approach of death, in fear 
and trembling, imagine that they can make 
amends for their having so long forgotten 
their Creator, by adopting the other extreme 
in their conduct ; but this is the result of fear ? 
not of love. A well regulated mind will per- 
ceive that God's favor is not to be thus 
purchased. He who has a correct conception 
of the character of the Supreme knows that 
He looks at the heart, and if that be right, the 
external demeanor will be so also. A gloomy 
religion cannot be of celestial origin ; for^ 
turning to our Bible, we find joyousness and 
grateful gladness constantly enjoined. "We 
there read : " Be not as the hypocrites, of a 
sad countenance." (Matt. vi. 16.) We no- 
where see sadness inculcated, but we find the 
Apostle Paul pronouncing joy to be one of 
the traits of the true Christian temper : " The 
fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering;" that is, patient suffering ; "gentle- 
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." 
{Gal. v. 22.) We also read : " For this is the 
love of God, that we keep His command- 
ments ; and His commandments are not 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 171 

grievous" (1 John v. 3.) But do not the 
melancholy religionists make them grievous ? 
Are they not imbued with the same spirit 
which prompted the servant to lay up the 
pound in a napkin, and who excused himself 
by saying : " For I feared thee because thou 
art an austere man ; thou takest up that thou 
layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst 
not sow." (Luke xix 21.) Do they not, like 
this servant, look upon God as an austere 
master, instead of a kind, indulgent, loving 
Father ? Are they not in a state of fear of 
punishment for some unreasonable require- 
ment ? Do they not virtually deny that " God 
is Love ? " and does not their fear of Hra 
stifle their love of Him ? " There is no fear in 
love, but perfect love casteth out fear ; because 
fear hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love." (1 John iv. 18.) We 
may infer, therefore, that that melancholy 
demeanor which is the offspring of fear is 
sinful ; and that they who would forbid inno- 
cent joyousness make an assumption of supe- 
rior holiness and wisdom over the Holy Word; 
for in the Bible innocent amusement is not 



172 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

forbidden. Every attentive reader of the 
Scriptures knows that every sin is there 
enumerated and condemned ; if, then, we can 
prove that dancing is repeatedly mentioned, 
yet not once censured, is it not a fair inference 
that dancing is not sinful? Every humble 
Christian will confess that the Bible is all- 
Bufficient for Christian practice ; and what it 
does not deem sinful man has no right to 
pronounce so. We learn from Goldsmith's 
" Manners and Customs of Nations," that 
almost all the nations on the face of the 
globe were, from the most ancient time, in 
the practice of rejoicing and showing their 
gladness and joyousness of heart by music 
and dancing. In Robbins' " Outline of His- 
tory " it is said of the Hebrews : " Their 
diversions seem to have consisted chiefly in 
social repasts, music and dancing. The two 
latter partook of a religious character. Games 
were never introduced into their common- 
wealths." In the Holy Record also, we find 
that joy and rejoicing were most commonly 
evinced by music and dancing. If a practice 
so ancient and of so frequent occurrence were 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 173 

really censurable in the eyes of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, would He not have taken occasion to 
make some condemnatory remark upon the 
subject ? Yet He does not ; He never once 
pronounces it sinful, nor tells them to refrain 
from it ; but rather implies that it is a fitting 
manifestation of rejoicing and of grateful glad- 
ness, and a natural demonstration of the 
exuberance of lively feeling; for He himself 
narrates the mode of rejoicing at the return of 
the Prodigal Son, without one hint of censure, 
in these beautifully simple words : " For this 
my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was 
lost, and is found. And they began to be 
merry. Now his elder son was in the field, 
and as he came and drew nigh to the house, 
he heard music and dancing" . . . " And he 
said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, 
and all that I have is thine. It was meet that 
we should make merry and be glad: for this 
thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; he 
was lost, and is found ! " (Luke xv. 24, 25, 31, 
32.) 

But in those times, as in the present, there 
were persons who deemed themselves more 



174 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

righteous than even the Lord; because He 
did not seclude himself from scenes of social 
enjoyment, but contributed to them; for His 
first miracle was at the merry-making of a 
wedding, where He turned water into wine, 
that the guests might continue their festivities. 
" And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, 
saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eat- 
eth with them." (Luke xv. 2.) " And Levi 
made him a great feast in his own house ; 
and there was a great company of publicans 
and of others that sat down with them. But 
their Scribes and Pharisees murmured against 
his disciples, saying: Why do ye eat and 
drink with publicans and sinners ? And 
Jesus answering said unto them : They that 
are whole need not the physician; but they 
that are sick. I came not to call the right- 
eous, but sinners to repentance." (Luke v. 29, 
30, 31, 32.) Is not the Lord here showing 
the expediency of teachers of religion, pro- 
fessors and church members frequenting fes- 
tivities for use to those who need the spiritual 
physician ? Should they not then follow His 
example rather than that of Scribes and Phari- 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 175 

sees ? If professors of religion, following the 
Lord's example, were in the constant habit 
of partaking of social amusements, we think 
they could thereby serve the cause of Chris- 
tianity far better than by excluding them- 
selves. By the former course they might 
exert their influence in expelling from these 
amusements all that is really inconsistent with 
the teachings of Scripture, and cultivate the 
real Christian temper — innocent cheerfulness. 
By the latter course they make religion for- 
bidding, and drive many well disposed persons 
from the ranks of Christianity ; because they 
cannot see the wisdom or justice of requiring 
such violence to the innocent feelings of their 
nature, by an unlovely austerity of demeanor. 
Should church members, nay, not only church 
members, but even their ministers, join in the 
innocent dance, they might restrain its impro- 
prieties and immoderations, and gaining the 
confidence of the young, overcome the desire 
to do in their absence what they dared not do 
in their presence ; as if they supposed them- 
selves sinless so long as their ministers did 
not see them ; forgetting that there is One 



176 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

greater than their ministers present ; and if 
dancing be not sinful in His sight, is it of any 
importance who deems it otherwise ? 

In the Scriptures we find that abstaining 
from dancing is a demonstration of mourning 
and grief, not an evidence of true piety, as 
may be seen by the following passage : " The 
joy of our heart is ceased ; our dance is turned 
into mourning." (Lam. v. 15.) But we per- 
ceive that dancing is expected, and is deemed 
consistent, at other times. Thus : " We have 
piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; we 
have mourned unto you, and ye have not 
lamented." (Matt. xi. 17.) Evidently reproach- 
ing them for not having danced when they 
were piped unto. Also : " There is a time to 
weep and a time to laugh ; a time to mourn 
and a time to dance." (Eccl. iii. 4.) It is 
mentioned as a mark of happiness : " They 
send forth their little ones like a flock, and 
their children dance." (Job xxi. 11.) 

Even in infancy we behold the intuitive 
exhibition of exuberant health and vivacity 
in infantile dances. Does it not then seem 
cruel to magnify so natural an impulse of 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 177 

innocence into an act of sinfulness, and thus 
to cramp the healthful elasticity which God 
has given them ? The Scriptures clearly 
show that rejoicing was most commonly 
demonstrated by dancing. For it is said : 
" And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of 
Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all 
the women went out after her, with timbrels 
and with dances." (Exod.xv. 20.) " Jephthah's 
daughter came out to meet him with timbrels 
and dances." (Judges xi. 34.) " Is not this 
David, the king of the land? Did they not 
sing one to another of him in dances ? " &c. 
(1 Sam. xxi. 11.) " Again I will build thee, and 
thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel ! Thou 
shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and 
shalt go forth in dances of them that make 
merry." (Jer. xxxi. 4.) " And it came to pass 
as they came, when David was returned from 
the slaughter of the Philistines, that the 
women came out of all the cities of Israel, 
singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with 
tabrets, with joy and with instruments of 
music." (1 Sam. xviii. 6.) " Thou hast turned 
my mourning into dancing ; thou hast put off 
12 



178 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." 
(Psalms xxx. 11.) " Let Israel rejoice in Him 
that made him. Let the children of Zion be 
joyful in their king. Let them praise His 
name in the dance." (Psalms cxlix. 23.) " And 
they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then 
shall the virgin rejoice in the dance; both 
young men and old together : for I will turn 
their mourning into joy, and will comfort 
them and make them rejoice from their sor- 
row." (Jer .xxxi. 13.) " Therefore they com- 
manded the children of Benjamin, saying, 
Go, and lie in wait in the vineyards ; and see, 
and behold if the daughters of Shiloh, come 
out to dance in dances ; then come ye out of 
the vineyards, and catch you every man his 
wife, of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to 
the land of Benjamin. And the children of 
Benjamin did so, and took their wives accord- 
ing to their number of them that danced 
whom they caught." (Judges xxi. 20, 21, 23.) 
" And David danced before the Lord with all 
his might. And as the ark of the Lord came 
into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, 
looked through a window, and saw King 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 179 

David leaping and dancing before the Lord ; 
and she despised him in her heart. Therefore 
Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child 
unto the day of her death." (2 Sam. vi. 14, 16, 
23.) This conduct of MichaPs has been 
quoted as an argument against dancing; 
whereas, if justice had been done, it would 
have been quoted in favor of it ; for the Lord 
deemed her despising David worthy of pun- 
ishment. And when Michal reproached David 
for dancing, he vindicated himself, and also 
said : " And of the maid-servants which thou 
hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in 
honor." (2 Sam. v. 22.) 

Another text of Scripture says : " And when 
the daughter of the said Herodias came in 
and danced, and pleased Herod, and them 
that sat with him," &c. (Mark vi. 22.) Then 
the consequence of this pleasing of Herod is 
related to have caused the execution of John. 
But some biblical scholars have supposed that 
the real truth was not, as Herod said, for his 
" oath's sake," but that his ordering of the 
execution was the result of a concerted plan 
between Herodias and Herod, who were to 



180 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

make it appear that the execution was unpre- 
meditated, and because the girl had pleased 
him ; whereas in reality it had been arranged 
with the mother that the oaths should be 
taken for that purpose. This unjust and 
cruel act of Herod has been quoted as an 
evidence of the sinfulness of dancing ; but to 
the unbiased mind it proves no more the sin- 
fulness of dancing than of all female grace 
and fascination ; for many a man knows to 
his sorrow that the fascinations of woman 
have caused him to make many a rash 
promise, even when there has been no dancing 
in the case. 

" And it came to pass as soon as he came 
nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and 
the dancing ; and Moses' anger waxed hot," 
&c. (Exod. xxxii. 19.) This is the only 
passage which seems to imply a censure upon 
dancing; yet it is evident that the anger of 
Moses was owing to the idolatry, rather than 
the dancing. The only remaining place 
where the word occurs is in a prophecy of 
desolation, viz : " And their houses shall be 
full of doleful creatures ; and owls shall dwell 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 181 

there and satyrs shall dance there." (Isaiah 
xiii. 21.) Which only serves to show how 
universally rejoicing is denoted by dancing; 
when even " doleful creatures " may resort to 
it, and convert an otherwise innocent practice 
into a prominent element in their disgusting 
orgies. 

We have now given every passage wherein 
dancing is mentioned in the Bible, and not 
one of them condemns it. Is it right, then, that 
man should? 

But some will say, " Still, much harm has 
resulted from dancing." Very true ; but harm 
has only ensued when the practice has been 
abused, not when it has been properly used. 
It is a well established maxim that the " abuse 
of a thing is no argument against the use of 
it." Evil has come out of every amusement, 
every good, every blessing, and even out of 
every essential of life ; because they have all 
at times been abused. Sleeping, eating, read- 
ing are not called sinful ; yet greater harm 
has come from each and all of these than 
perhaps ever came from dancing. But in 
all cases it was the result of the abuse of 



182 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

each. Has not the abuse of sleeping made 
the sluggard, and thus led poverty and starva- 
tion to stare in the face of thousands ? Has 
not the abuse of eating generated physical 
and moral disease ? And has not profane 
reading led many a soul to hell ? If so much 
harm has come from these practices, why 
should dancing be deemed any worse ? 

The truth is, dancing in itself is innocent or 
otherwise, according to the characters of those 
who practise it, and according to the thoughts, 
intentions and feelings of the dancers. Let 
these be correct and pure, and the act will be 
so too, and void of offence, " toward God and 
toward man." If the children of professing 
Christians are taught genuine goodness, and 
true practical holiness, we venture to say that 
there will be no inexpediency in teaching them 
to dance ; for the evil of dancing consists in 
its intemperance. This, Scripture deems sin- 
ful, and this only it forbids. Intemperance, 
therefore, should be shunned in dancing as in 
everything else. Let dancing be freed from 
immoderation, immodesty and imprudence, 
and it will be nothing more than a temperate 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 183 

exercise, a stimulator of health, and an inno- 
cent promoter of cheerfulness ; while, at the 
same time, it will induce and enhance an ease 
and grace of carriage which is so eminently 
conducive of feminine and manly beauty. 

By persons in whom an interest in the New 
Jerusalem Church has been awakened, we are 
often requested to advise them what books 
they had best read on the subject. This is 
always very difficult to do judiciously, as the 
course of reading most suitable to each indi- 
vidual invariably depends upon the spiritual 
state of the reader. With some, the writings 
of Swedenborg, at first, are not at all relished 
nor understood, w r hilst the collateral works are 
duly appreciated as preparatory, after which 
they comprehend and learn to appreciate Swe- 
denborg himself. This is generally the case 
with beginners, yet not always ; some persons 
prefer to go directly to the fountain head, and 
enjoy his writings more than any others. 
These latter, however, are rare, and even for 
them, it is not always easy to select what they 
had best begin with. Therefore, it is with 



184 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 

diffidence we subjoin a list of books which 
may possibly be suitable to some individuals 
who have been imbued with the doctrines of 
the Episcopal Church, viz : 1. Rev. S. Noble's 
" Appeal in Behalf of the Doctrines of the 
New Church," 1 vol. ; 2. Rev. R. Hindmarsh's 
" Church of England Weighed and Found 
Wanting ; being an Examination of the Thirty 
Nine Articles of the Church of England," &c, 
1 vol. ; 3. Rev. T. Goyder's " Key of Knowl- 
edge to the Holy Scriptures, by the use of 
which a true system of Theology is restored, 
and the Word of God with Clearness and 
Certainty Explained," 1 vol. ; 4. The best, 
latest approved " Life of Swedenborg ; "* then 
his own works with the assistance of the 
" Dictionary of Correspondences," as follows: 
1. " On the New Jerusalem and its Heavenly 
Doctrine," 1 vol. ; 2. " Angelic Wisdom Con- 
cerning Divine Providence," 1 vol. ; 3. " An 
Account of the Last Judgment," 1 vol. ; 4. 
" Concerning Heaven and its Wonders, and 

* A compendium of the writings of Swedenborg, published 
in Boston, 1854, is prefaced by a very complete life of the 
Author. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW CHURCHES. 185 

Concerning Hell," 1 vol.; 5. "The True 
Christian Religion ; or the Universal Theology 
of the New Church." 1 vol. ; 6, " The first 
volume of the Arcana Celestia;" 7. The first 
volume of u The Apocalypse Explained." After 
which the reader will be enabled to judge for 
himself what he had best read, by looking at 
the Catalogue of the New Church Books.* 

If it please God that this little book be the 
means of leading some of my readers to a 
more thorough investigation of the subject. 
and thereby becoming sincere receivers of the 
Heavenly Doctrines, of which it is said in the 
Word of God: " And L, John, saw the Holy 
City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God 
out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband. And the city had no need of 
the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, 
for the glory of God did lighten it, and the 
Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations 
of them which are saved shall walk in the 
light of it And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes, and there shall be no 

* To be obtained at John Allen's, 28 Beekman Street, New 
York ; also at Otis Clapp's, 3 Beacon Street, Boston, &c. 
13 



188 POINTS OF DIFFERENCE, ETC. 

more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain, for the former 
things are passed away." (Revelation xxi. 2, 
23, 24, 4.) If this be the result of my efforts, 
I shall deem myself most richly rewarded 
in having been made the instrument of God 
in helping some of my fellow-beings to be- 
come Holy Angels of Heaven. 



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